1 




ClassJjilLS: 
Bnnlc 'Cl?, 

Copigta N"_ 



CORflUGKr DEPOSIT. 



THE EDGE OF 
THE QUICKSANDS 



BY 

D; THOMAS CURTIN 

Author of "The Land of 
Deepening Shadow," etc. 




NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



V 



3^ 



Copyright, 1918, 
By George H. Doran Company 



Printed in the United States of America 

OCT 10 Ibia 

Q CI. A 5 6 1 .23 

t \ 






TO 

MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PA«E 

I A Thousand Differences 11 

II How the Germans Are Governed . . 33 

III The Phonograph Man 61 

IV Smoke Clouds of Democracy .... 81 
V The Wilson Wedge 169 

VI The Secret of German Resistance . . 143 

VII The Decisive Weapon 174 

VIII The Invisible Army 192 

IX Our Prisoner Extraordinary . . . .217 

X Footlight Warfare 232 

XI A Dusty Volume in Berlin . . . . 243 

XII The Mothers Across the Sea .... 252 

XIII The Dug-outless Front 268 

XIV The Frightfulness Moon 277 

XV Thou Shalt Kill 295 

XVI The Quicksands 310 



THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 



THE EDGE 
OF THE QUICKSANDS 



CHAPTEK I 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 



Ayeab after that memorable first of February, 
1917, when Germany unfurled the black flag of 
piracy in the face of the world, I was talking with 
a group of American soldiers at Bar-le-Duc. 

I had just come back from Verdun and was telling 
them what I had seen in Germany nearly two years 
before when the crushing pincers pressed through 
Douaumont, Vaux, Thiaumont, Fleury and Dead Man's 
Hill ; when once again, after the depression due to po- 
sition-warfare and food shortage, I had heard the Ger- 
mans talk boastingly of smashing victory and indem- 
nities. Social Democrats had again forgotten their pro- 
fession in the prospects of sweeping German victories 
and the indemnities that would keep down taxes. 

I was delighted with the interest the American sol- 
diers showed in everything German. Although much 
of our talk was of the light and bantering sort, these 
lads asked me questions concerning German ideas, 
politics and customs which showed how different one 
more declaration of war had made European affairs to 
a nation of more than a hundred million people. 

11 



12 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

We stopped talking when a group of three officer 
prisoners passed to the railroad station under guard. 
One of the three was conspicuously taller than his com- 
panions; yet it was not his height which held the at- 
tention of the boys from the States but the gashes 
criss-crossed on his cheek. 

"That fellow has been chopped up some in this lit- 
tle war!" said a private named Schultz. 

"Possibly," I said, "but what do you see about him 
that makes you think so ?" 

"See about him," cried Schultz. "Say, fellows, did 
you see that face?" 

They did. Whereupon I felt it incumbent upon 
myself to inject a few explanations concerning German 
social customs. "He did not acquire those scars in this 
war or in any other war," I began. 

"How remarkable!" breathed Schultz, with affected 
gravity. "All right, I'll be the Doctor Watson in the 
story. Would you be so good, my dear Holmes, as to 
explain your astounding deductions ? J.1 he did not get 
the scars in war, he probably got them at a little card 
party, I suppose ?" 

"He did not," I explained. "Those scars are duel- 
ling mementos that many German students take lov- 
ingly from their universities. I have seen students 
put salt and vinegar and other irritants into facial 
wounds in order to make them endure more vividly." 

Schultz looked mystified. So did the others. 

"I have seen fellows back home," he said, "put a 
beaf steak poultice over a closing eye or pair of same 
to make these little souvenirs of a scrap less conspicu- 
ous. The Germans seem to have a different idea about 
some things." 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 13 

"About many things," I said. "There are a thousand 
differences between Germany and the United States. 
That is why the Germans do not understand the Amer- 
icans and the Americans do not understand them. 
There have been various kinds of wars throughout his- 
tory. This is a war of ideas, of systems, and not a war 
of religion or of races or of blood." (Private Schultz 
looked at me gratefully for this last, inasmuch as the 
full-blooded American, Private O'Brien, had been ban- 
tering him with such remarks as that a belt with Gott 
mit uns would be more in harmony with his name than 
buttons with the American eagle.) 

"Now, speaking about national differences," I con- 
tinued, "take that detail in the unrestricted U-boat dec- 
laration in which the Imperial Government calmly in- 
structed our State Department that we could sail a boat 
to Falmouth once a week and a boat from Falmouth 
with the same frequency, such boats to be painted in a 
manner suggestive of Barnum and Bailey floats. The 
ultimatum to Serbia was an olive-branch compared 
with that affront. Had the German universities of- 
fered an 'America insult prize' they could have evolved 
no greater slap in the face. No insult was intended, 
however. Official Germany has developed the habit — 
sufficiently safe at home — of ordering, and is puzzled 
why other peoples should refuse to obey. Do not the 
German people obey German official orders, and are not 
the German people the 'salt of the earth' ? — as the 
Kaiser himself admits. 

"Now, the most interesting and painful thing about 
the matter is that the German people consider the 
United States quarrelsome and war-picking because 
we did not accept the generous offer of their govern- 



14 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ment. I say 'generous offer' because that is the expres- 
sion they use, just as they used it on a former occasion 
when Washington was informed that Americans could 
travel on four designated ships. Now, this 'generous 
attitude' sentiment of the German people may seem a 
trifling thing, but it is of the utmost importance. When 
a government so conducts itself that it antagonises all 
the free peoples of the earth, but continues to win the 
approval of its own well disciplined millions, who re- 
gard its slightest 'concessions' to other nations as 'gen- 
erous' the world has almost unlimited opportunities for 
bloodshed and misery." 

The boys agreed. 

"But how about that fellow with the gashes ?" asked 
Schultz. "You were telling us about putting salt into 
their duelling wounds to make them show up better." 

"Yes," I continued, "and they keep their hair closely 
cropped if they are fortunate enough to have any scalp 
gashes. You see, social lines are very strictly drawn 
in the Fatherland, and snobbery is abundant. Now, 
the crux of the matter is, that the only Germans who 
indulge in duelling are the students of fashionable corps 
at the universities. Consequently, when a man goes 
through life with these external marks of higher educa- 
tion upon his brow, he is looked up to by the great 
mass of his fellow countrymen." 

"But don't these marks show that he was not skil- 
ful enough to keep the other fellow's blows off ?" asked 
Schultz, with American analysis. 

"Jn this case, my dear Watson, your deductions are 
surprisingly correct — to a point. But what you do not 
deduce is the psychological fact that cultured Germans 
are eager to proclaim to the world that they were not 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 15 

skilful enough to prevent an opposing swordsman get- 
ting through their guard if by so doing they can show 
their higher rung in the social ladder. As members of 
fashionable duelling corps they reach a very high 
rung." 

But Schultz was shaking his head. He was deeply 
interested and trying to understand, but he simply 
could not fathom this particular German peculiarity. 

"Funny," he concluded. "When we get into a fight, 
we like to leave all the marks on the other fellow!" 

A simple anecdote, but one which shows a difference 
in American and German points of view. If we were 
to explore back into Private Schultz's ancestry, we 
should undoubtedly find a German or partial German 
origin. But he thinks American, and he talks Amer- 
ican. He is American. The people of European coun- 
tries impressed me during the war that in general 
they do not realise the chemicalisation which goes on 
from generation to generation in the United States, 
which gives a distinct and typical standard of nation- 
ality to the overwhelming majority of the population. 
Had Private Schultz's ancestry remained in the Father- 
land, he might be in flesh and blood quite the same as 
he is to-day, but his whole personality, his ideas, his ut- 
terances, would be of an entirely different order. If 
there arose an opportunity such as that of Bar-le-Duc 
to discuss some psychological trait of the opposing side, 
he would, as a German soldier, do it in a philosophi- 
cally serious manner. As an American, the lighter vein, 
with its Holmes and Watson interpolations, has become 
Schultz's dominant tone because his ancestors left Ger- 
man iron-clad regulations for the far-spread horizons 
of the Western World. 



16 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

In Germany, as the U-boat crisis with America 
neared the breaking point, I used to be solemnly as- 
sured by all classes that my country would be im- 
potent in a war against Germany because we ourselves 
would be plunged into civil war. To prove this asser- 
tion they would tell me that there were eighteen million 
Germans in the United States, all of whom, according 
to masterful Teutonic diagnosis, would be with the 
Fatherland. The assumption that all Germans who 
had gone to the United States and their descendants 
would continue loyal to the land which the emigrants 
had left because they were dissatisfied with it was a 
more gratifying assumption for Potsdam than a logical 
one. 

The Germans have an obsession for grouping and 
arranging the elements which comprise the universe — 
in fact, cataloguing is a national pastime. In a later 
chapter I will show how they catalogued prisoners of 
war, particularly the various elements that comprise 
Russia, and the practical uses to which they put this 
cataloguing. 

Before we came into the war they were doing some 
interesting cataloguing in the United States, some of it 
along the perfectly thorough, if somewhat crude lines, 
of plodding their way through city directories to check 
off for the Kaiser every name with a German flavour. 
A rather simple method of transfer of some of our 
countrymen such as Charles Schwab who is increasing 
shipping to counter Germany's one great chance to win 
decisively, and Edward Eickenbacher of Columbus, 
Ohio, whose favourite recreation is knocking down Ger- 
man airplanes. 

The Germans, however, encouraged themselves to the 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 17 

further extent of estimating the total number of Amer- 
icans of Austro-Hungarian extraction, overlooking for 
the sake of statistics the otherwise obvious fact that the 
freed descendants and members of such races as the 
Bohemians, the Slovaks, and the Croatians could hardly 
be expected to support that side in the struggle which 
kept Bohemia, Slovakia and Croatia "loyal" through 
the efficacious, if not endearing and persuasive, powers 
of the military and the police. 

And Ireland! How the Germans did rub their 
hands gleefully when they talked to me of Ireland. 
"Just think," I heard them cry jubilantly or sneer- 
ingly, "to all of our loyal Germans and Hungarians we 
can add the fifteen million Irish in America." Truly, 
I had reason to be alarmed in Germany. If the Swedes 
in the United States would only stay neutral, I felt, 
what a glorious civil war between the Kaiser's forces as 
catalogued above and the Allied Americans! Was 
there no such person as an American- American ? — I 
used to wonder. 

It has been my good fortune to see much of both 
sides, for since the beginning of the war I have made 
five journeys into the Central Empires and six journeys 
out of them. Emerging from the blackness of a coal- 
mine shaft to the dazzling shimmer of sunlight and 
blue sky, is a comparatively mild sensation compared 
with the feelings aroused when I changed rapidly from 
the observation of the activities of one side to those of 
the other. 

People are affected by their environment to varying 
degrees, but all to some degree. War accentuates, and 
when I was with the Austrians in their first campaign 
against the Serbs, I involuntarily began to see the 



18 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Serbs not as they really were but through the eyes of 
their Austro-Hungarian enemies. Therefore, their 
similarity to and their contrast with the picture paint- 
ed for me stood out jaggedly clear when ,1 later joined 
them. 

So, too, from the German army against the Russian, 
to the Russian army against the German. On one side 
of the Eastern battle front, my environment made one 
picture the Cossacks as beasts devoid of all human 
feelings. Indeed, while I was with the German troops, 
I learned that they were under orders to take as many 
Russian prisoners as possible, with the single excep- 
tion that no quarter was to be given the Cossacks. 

On the other side of the Eastern front a fellow-jour- 
nalist and I once dashed across the Roumanian-Bucovin- 
ian frontier, between the retreating Russians and the 
advancing Austro-Germans, where I had a distinct and 
ineffaceable impression of the first rear guard Cossacks 
headed toward us — an impression which crystallised 
into an ejaculation: "Thank God, Dunn, that you put 
your money in your shoe." Yet we chummed with the 
Cossacks for days during their retreat, eating with 
them, sharing their rough sleeping quarters, borrowing 
smokes, and lending matches. To be sure, they did 
not impress me as men who liked to spend their spare 
time frequenting public libraries; but, on the other 
hand, I feel that I understand them immeasurably bet- 
ter than if all my opinions of them bore a made-in-Ger- 
many label. 

So, too, the mingled elated and dazed sensation 
when, after seeing khaki and French blue for months, 
I found myself once more among spiked helmets in 
the twisting streets in the fortress city of Cologne; or 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 19 

again, when shifting after a few days in the autumn 
of 1916, from the broad, straight, brightly-lighted 
streets of the German capital to Britain's capital in 
which I arrived after night had fallen. 

My mind had been fired by German descriptions of 
the great metropolis on the Thames. To be sure, I had 
left a darkened London more than a year before, but not 
a blackened city such as this. The London I left had 
dim street lights, but now, as I was driven through the 
narrow, crooked thoroughfares bordered by the shadowy 
outlines of houses over whose windows were drawn 
heavy blinds, a fringe of light in an occasional window 
where the curtains did not fit tightly seemed, by con- 
trast, some world of Arabian Nights. I fell to won- 
dering what kind of life was inside those dimmed, mis- 
shapen masses bulking so weirdly about me. The streets 
did not seem part of London ; the real London, the liv- 
ing thing, appeared to be caged up inside where the 
lights were. I thought the taxi driver who whisked me 
safely to the Strand the most wonderful man in the 
world. 

During months of life in London, I grew rapidly 
accustomed to the change. The impressions of that 
first night are valuable, as are all first impressions, in 
that when they are analysed they are indicators of con- 
trast. 

Another tremendous change, along the same line, was 
my first night back in New York in the spring of 1918. 
When I walked down Broadway, not the brightly- 
lighted streets of Berlin, but the dark ones of London 
and Paris had become the standard with which I com- 
pared them. I had lost the realisation that streets could 



20 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

be lighted well enough to enable one to see the expres- 
sions upon the faces of passers-by. 

In Xew York, however. I found myself marvelling 
that I could see even the colours of the eyes of the 
passers-by. In London a small pocket electric torch 
flashes like a searchlight, but on Broadway one would 
not notice its rays because of the glare. All this tran- 
sition from one country to another, this studying them 
under conditions of war, sharpens the observation and 
tends to balance the judgment on the war and its out- 
come. 

One day, while I was sitting on one of the neat 
flower-bordered balconies which characterise the apart- 
ment city of Berlin, I watched some children playing 
in the street with a ball and stick during that abbre- 
viated free time allowed them between their studying 
and their extra home and state work. I began to com- 
pare them in their play with American children of the 
same age in theirs. The game resembled back-yard 
baseball minus that "indefinable something"*' that makes 
baseball atmosphere. Among other things, they went 
through their play without that individuality that one 
would find in America. They stopped the game for a 
time to watch an organised group of school children, 
headed by Herr Lehrer. marching toward the Grune- 
wald to indulge in some nature study. The marchers' 
ages ranged from eight to eleven, and they moved 
along in military column of fours, singing "In der 
Heimat" and the inevitable ''Deutschland, Deutsch- 
land iiber alles.'*' Among other things, the Herr Lehrer 
would instruct them just how to gather berries most 
scientifically and in a manner least likely to damage 
the bushes. This is part of the '■war work" set aside 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 21 

for them by their paternal government. This little 
scene caused me to continue my reflections upon the 
traits of nations. 

I used to feel that the telegraph, the post, the rail- 
way, the steamboat and the automobile sandpapered 
down the contours of individual characteristics which 
differentiate one people from another. Despite the 
ever decreasing size of our planet, however, certain fun- 
damental barriers have been growing higher between 
various nations, particularly between the citizens of the 
American democracy and the subjects of the German 
autocracy. There is such a thing as the soul of a peo- 
ple, and these German children grow up with quite 
a different outlook upon the world than do American 
children raised under a wholly different set of condi- 
tions. 

Differences in customs are always interesting. 

One day, after a long tramp from Bethmann-Holl- 
weg's estate at Hohenfinow, I took the train at Dahms^ 
dorf to return to Berlin. 

In addition to an American companion, there were 
three others in the compartment which would seat ten 
in this old-fashioned, non-corridor train. At the las; 
moment, a party of six clambered in — three men fol- 
lowed by their wives. They had been strolling about 
the pleasant bit of rolling country near Buchow and 
were happy and tired at the end of their day's outing. 
The men promptly sank into three of the vacant seats 
with grunts and other expressions of relief. Unfortu- 
nately, there were only two seats for the three women 
who trailed after them, which were taken by the first 
two to come in. Apparently the whole party conducted 
itself upon the principle of first come, first served. 



22 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Had this been my first trip to Germany, I might have 
expected that the husband of the standing woman had 
merely rushed along to save a seat for her. As it was, 
I somewhat less than half expected that such was the 
case. He, with the others, expressed regret that there 
were only five seats for six tired people. For about 
half an hour I sat comfortably back in the corner, inter- 
ested far less in the flat scenery than in the psycho- 
logical phenomenon of how long the able-bodied hus- 
band would refrain from suggesting to his wife that she 
might like at least to share his seat with him in turn. 
To my dismay, my impetuous companion rudely in- 
terrupted my investigation of physical truths by rising 
and offering the woman his place in a tone which min- 
gled forced politeness with anger. She accepted with 
thanks and a look of genuine gratitude, while her 
sturdy husband raised his straw hat, and, settling back 
even more contentedly, added his profuse thanks. 

I have seen much of women standing in America in 
public conveyances, to be sure ; but I never expect to 
see an able-bodied American husband sit by and thank 
a man who gives his seat to his wife. 

In this war, I have felt how hermetically sealed are 
the frontiers enclosing each group of belligerents, and 
how little the millions of the one really know of the 
conditions pertaining among the millions of the other. 
Profoundly interesting and important are the feel- 
ings which one side ascribes to its adversary on certain 
activities of the war, each being prone to herald some 
difficulty or new setback of its enemy as producing a 
condition that can not be endured. 

For example, in 1916, during the battle of the 
Somme, I was sitting in the back room of a Berlin 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 23 

W einstvbe, where several of us journalists had learned 
to congregate because we somehow mysteriously under- 
stood that in this particular eating establishment we 
could get meat without meat tickets, — even on the two 
meatless days a week. The German citizens who pat- 
ronised the place had no such privilege. The reason 
that we Americans had it was not because the pro- 
prietor or the Wilhelmstrasse looked upon us as jolly 
good fellows, but because the proprietor and the Wil- 
helmstrasse connived to permit us to violate the iron- 
clad food regulations of Berlin in order that we might 
feel the happier in the Fatherland and reflect this hap- 
piness as Germany's happiness to our readers across the 
seas. Yet this was only part of the reason, for we 
soon had excellent grounds to believe that the meat was 
but bait to lure us into a dictaphone trap. The partic- 
ular day of which I speak was a meatless day, which, 
in our case, as five of us sat about the table, simply 
meant that there had to be a camouflage of egg over 
our meat so that the Gottstrafers of England and Amer- 
ica at neighbouring tables would not be aware of our 
unheard of privileges. 

One of our number was possessed of a copy of the 
London Times into which he buried himself. Finally 
he glanced up. "My God, men, just look at those 
losses !" 

A German at a neighbouring table, who understood 
English, came over at this remark, looked at the Times, 
and then beckoned to his companions, who also joined 
us. The first German ran his finger slowly down one 
column of finely printed losses, then down another un- 
til he had crossed the page of seven columns ; then over 
on the next page and down more columns. "The Eng- 



24 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

lish cannot stand that," lie said, "or in any event, they 
will not be willing to stand that. When the English 
people grasp fully the meaning of these huge casualties 
which they are suffering on the Somme, they will refuse 
to make further sacrifices and the end of the war will 
be in sight." 

Another back room, this one in a venerable restau- 
rant on Fleet Street in London where a group of Eng- 
lishmen of activities as diverse as those in Addison's 
Spectator Club, are accustomed to sit down to a 
luncheon that suggests the eighteenth century! In 
June, 1917, ten months after the little back-room scene 
in Berlin, I sat among these genial conversationalists, 
men exceptionally well informed in all that pertains to 
English history and life, — fair-minded men, quietly de- 
termined that Germany be defeated, but not given to 
the use of invectives against her. They were discussing 
the great news of the week, the explosion of the big- 
gest mine of the war on Messines Ridge. 

"I feel confident," said one, "now that we have taken 
Vimy Ridge, that Messines is the beginning of the 
end and the war will be over this summer. Think of 
the terror which those explosions must have inspired! 
Certainly the German soldiers will be unwilling to con- 
tinue to fight when the full realisation of the truth of 
Messines dawns upon them. Then they will be sincere 
in talking of a real peace." 

The others agreed. 

I tried to express the opinion, however, that al- 
though Messines had been a very terrible thing for 
those Germans who happened to be occupying the 
ground blown up or near it, that, after all, only a 
slight part of the German army had any first-hand 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 25 

knowledge of the explosion, and therefore Germany as 
a whole would be no more affected by it than she would 
be, or the Allies would be, by innumerable other un- 
pleasant features of the war. 

Of particular interest I have found the varied ideas 
in Europe of America during the war. I came upon 
some in an out-of-the-way manner in the very first days 
when I was seeking to make a circuit from Budapest to 
the Austro-Serbian front through Hungary's most east- 
ern province of Siebenburgen, a rough, picturesque 
country whose Szeckler peasants lay claim to descent 
from the original Huns. 

In one of the little villages, half Hungarian and half 
subjugated Roumanian, I made the acquaintance of the 
village school master, he being of the latter race. 

During supper, he told me how he longed to be able 
to travel but that he had been only as far as Budapest. 
He asked me many questions about America — Niagara 
Falls being of especial interest to him. He spoke of his 
books, being most proud of the fact that he had two re- 
lating to my country. Supper over, he showed me these 
as we sat in the garden where the gentle breezes of 
evening mingled the fragrance of the hay fields and the 
flowers. J began to grow interested when I saw that the 
illustrations were mainly of rough mountain trails and 
rocky coasts, with fishing villages, polar-bear-seaside-re- 
sorts, and Indians dancing about camp fires. 

"I suppose you have seen much of this dancing in 
America," he observed. 

I might have told him that since 1910 it had been 
growing very popular in New York and other terpsi- 
chorean centres, but I did not wish to confuse him. 

"Sometimes, in my classes," he explained, "I have 



26 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

occasion to refer to Africa and America, and I find 
that these books will give my pupils some ideas about 
your country." 

I mentally agreed that they certainly would give them 
some ideas. 

Of course, this is a rather unusual case. But did the 
members of the German government really understand 
us ? Do they understand us now ? 

They comforted themselves with their catalogues, 
their thoughts of civil war, and a money-mad populace 
willing to pay any price for peace. 

"What would you do ?" I was repeatedly and inso- 
lently asked in Germany. "You are not soldiers; you 
have no army." Little wonder that I found more than 
ninety per cent of the Kaiser's subjects wildly clamour- 
ing for unrestricted U-boat warfare and utterly con- 
temptuous of anything that the United States could 
do should she come into the war. 

Jn September, 1916, Herr Stresemann, the Great 
Industrialist member of the Reichstag, famous for his 
philippics against America, stopped me on Unter den 
Linden with the remark, "Do you think that your coun- 
try will break with us if we use the submarine to its 
fullest capacity ?" 

"I am absolutely certain of it," I said. 

"Well, we're going to do it, none the less," he de- 
clared, emphatically. "After all, what can the United 
States do in this war ? You are making munitions now 
for our enemies because of financial gain, and there's 
nothing more that you can do. You are not a nation in 
the German sense. You have a vast extent of country, 
to be sure, and numbering population as one would cat- 
tle, you have more than we. But what a population! 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 27 

I will tell you what your country is: America is a 
continent of jelly, full of indissoluble lumps of for- 
eigners." 

After three and one-half years in warring Europe, I 
have returned to my own country for a brief visit. As' 
I travel about during a definite transition phase of our 
history, when, after a year of preparation, during which 
we seemed to have only one foot in the war, we are now 
keenly awakening to the truth that this is our war, I 
see the rising tide against everything savouring of 
Prussianism, and with it a growing desire to mobilise 
all our resources to win the war. 

I used to hear the Germans scoff that we selfishly 
thought only of individual money-making — an opin- 
ion existing in many other countries. Yet, I now see the 
growing spirit of sacrifice for an ideal among the ma- 
jority of Americans equal to anything ,1 have seen in 
Europe during the war. Above all, I see the real soul 
of a unified America growing out of the deadly can- 
cers which fed on a long-continued impossible neu- 
trality. 

Every day I witness scenes which impress upon 
me afresh the absurdity of those remarks dinned into 
my ears in the Land of the Kaiser. Some races can 
be kicked into submission; others can be kicked into a 
fight. We rank very high among the latter. Clearly 
the Germans, although they had unlimited access to 
information about our country, were entirely wrong 
in their deductions, principally psychological, from such 
information. Have America and her Allies been more 
correct in their opinions of Germany? 

Is there not a tendency among all peoples to form 



28 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

their judgment of other peoples upon institutions which 
they know ? 

Once in early springtime I was talking with a na- 
tive among the hills of Wales that rise above the Wye, 
and I commented upon the colour-harmony of the very 
red soil with the greenery. He saw nothing unusual 
about it. When I enlarged upon the point, he said, 
"Why, it is simply ploughed land." 

"I know," I went on, "but it's the colour of which I 
speak." 

"Why," he exclaimed, "jl thought that all ploughed 
land was red." 

He certainly did think so; but despite his belief, 
there is white soil on the chalk-downs of Surrey and 
Kent and very black soil in Missouri. Because this 
countryman believed all soil red does not harm him nor 
the world in the least; but if statesmen, particularly 
those of democracies, fail to differentiate certain dis- 
tinctions between their own and other countries they 
might cause their country almost unlimited bloodshed 
and even destruction. 

Most citizens of any nation are engaged in some kind 
of business which occupies the bulk of their atten- 
tion. Some people hold the opinion that statesman- 
ship should be a business in the sense that leaders of 
the nations whose annihilation Germany was plotting 
should have been aware of the danger and taken pains 
to acquaint their people with it. It should be borne in 
mind, however, that one of the difficulties of such an 
open course is that when a statesman in a peaceful 
land warns of a threatening war, he is considered a 
jingo with a chip on his shoulder. 

I have often heard remarked in America how Ger- 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 29 

many fooled the whole world about her intention to 
make war. It certainly is our own fault and that of 
all the Allied countries if we have been fooled. The 
Germans were most open in their talk of war. 

Before the war I used to be profoundly impressed 
with the differences in conversation of American school 
and university students and those of Germany. I left 
lads talking about athletic games, major-league baseball 
standings and the professional and business careers they 
contemplated, to live among school boys of sixteen to 
eighteen and university students somewhat older who 
talked about menaces to Germany and the wars she 
would fight. 

I remember a youngster of eleven at one of my Ber- 
lin boarding-houses — a youngster typifying the youth 
of Germany — who used to come home from his school 
and in heroic pose strike his chest, while his eyes 
gleamed, as he cried, "Frankreich ist mein Feind." 
(France is my enemy.) 

During the "Agadir" crisis in 1911, I was in Al- 
sace, where I was very friendly with several German 
officers whom I knew and liked. I was walking with 
one of them one afternoon, just outside of Strassburg, 
when he remarked, "I am sorry that I can not go far- 
ther to-day, but we have new war orders that we must 
never be more than ten minutes away from our horses." 
His eyes glowed. "Ah," he said, "how we long to 
march against France! We have a far better army 
than had our fathers." 

A few days later I noted an air of gloom settled 
upon the garrison. I met my friend and asked him the 
reason. He looked sullen and disappointed. "We are 
told that if we rush into France, England will stand by 



30 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

her, and therefore we must wait — and prepare," he ex- 
plained. But his anger was rising at the thought of 
delay. "Damnation upon England," he cried. "You 
just see, we'll get our chance some day." 

I went to England, where I tried to find a war- 
fever against Germany. For the English, however, 
all soil was red. But just because they were not talk- 
ing and thinking about war, it did not necessarily 
follow that the Germans were not doing so. The Eng- 
lish were making the perilous mistake of judging Ger- 
many after the standards of their own environment. 
Had the Secretary for Foreign Affairs understood Ger- 
many, he might have advised the Cabinet, Parliament 
: - 1 the people; but Sir Edward Grey, one of the most 
kit' lly men that ever lived, was a high-minded gentle- 
man who looked for the good and not the bad in hu- 
manity. Add to this trait the fact that he had never 
been to Germany, he easily fell into the error of seeing 
that country through the eyes of Prince Lichnowsky, 
the German Ambassador to Great Britain, — he, too, a 
man of peace and a perfect gentleman, and being such, 
at odds with Potsdam and the Wilhelmstrasse. 

Thus Britain, impatient with the few voices crying 
in the wilderness, remained snugly unprepared, in con- 
sequence of which she has been trying for four years 
to drive the Germans out of territory which they occu- 
pied in very much less than four months. 

In the autumn of 1915, during the enemy smash 
through Serbia, a member of the British Government 
raised a protest against a London newspaper because 
that newspaper had printed an illuminating map of 
Europe and Asia with guide-posts marking German in- 
tention from Antwerp to the Persian Gulf. The mem- 



A THOUSAND DIFFERENCES 31 

ber indignantly called for the suppression of the news- 
paper on the ground that the map showed the enemy 
possibilities of expansion. Of course it would be a pity 
to put Wanderlust notions into the heads of the home- 
loving Germans, but isn't there something ludicrous in 
the idea that a people who had done little more than 
glance at occasional maps of the near East were hush- 
hushing the secret of the possibilities of the region 
which another people had scientifically surveyed ? Isn't 
there something tragic, too, in the realisation that the 
lives of men and the destiny of nations are some- 
times entrusted to such officialdom? 

Since the beginning of the war, ,1 have observed 
three stages of opinion among the Allied countries re- 
garding the fight being carried on by Germany. The 
first stage may be summed up : "Germany prepared for 
the war and chose her own time. We did not prepare. 
Isn't it miraculous that we ever managed to stop the 
German army?" 

After the Germans dug themselves into position-war- 
fare, thus affording the Allies the opportunity to rush 
preparations, the characteristic tone of stage two, espe- 
cially popular among French and British military cor- 
respondents was: "The Allies' superior resources in 
man-power and material will tell. When these are or- 
ganised, Germany can not escape defeat." 

Stage three I find strongest in America as the fifth 
year of the war gets under way. It has existed to 
varying extents among the nations of Europe warring 
against Germany but has tended to diminish among 
them because of their proximity to the actual war. 
This is the stage of, "Isn't it wonderful how Germany 
manages to hold out ?" 



32 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

In the following chapters I shall consider the reasons 
why Germany "holds out" in the light of the facts as 
I have found them throughout Europe and the United 
States. In doing this it is of utmost importance to 
emphasise some of the thousand differences. In the 
first place we must understand clearly the differences 
between the German system of government and our 
own in order fully to grasp the significance of such 
great factors in the war as the enemy's struggle against 
blockade, the forces for and against revolution in Ger- 
many, the degree to which the struggle may be con- 
tinued, and the future of propaganda and commercial 
conflicts. 



CHAPTEE JI 

HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 

The first step toward a peaceful community ©f 
nations is the smashing of German military 
domination, i.e., the smashing of the German system 
of government. What is this system of government 
and wherein does it differ from our own ? 

Two common conceptions of it are wrong: In the 
first place, it is not an organisation of supermen; sec- 
ondly, it is not a despotism holding down the majority 
of the German people against their will. 

Germany is constantly spoken of as an autocracy, 
as was Russia: She is. , But the autocratic head en- 
joys his tremendous power because he is the apex ©f 
the most complete and efficient bureaucratic system 
known to history. 

Germany is like a colossal but perfectly working tele- 
phone switchboard, the owner and director of which 
is the Kaiser, while the immediate operator is the 
Imperial Chancellor, who makes and breaks connec- 
tions at his master's direction, and so on down through 
the entire system of millions of people, high and low. 
Each is directly responsible to the chief next above him 
in rank. Neither the system nor anybody in it is re- 
sponsible to the people. Most of the people, however, 
are welded to the system by ingenious devices which 
will be explained later. 

33 



34 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Germany is not only a bureaucracy, but a military 
bureaucracy, inasmuch, as the military and not the civil 
state is the ideal. Its head has never been in the least 
reticent about proclaiming that he is not responsible to 
the people. In 1891, after his dismissal of Bismarck, 
William II informed his subjects: 

"One, and only one, is lord of the land, and I am 
that one." 

A little later he said to the Prussian Guard : 

"You have sworn fidelity to me, which means that 
you are now soldiers. You have surrendered your- 
selves to me body and soul. For you there is only one 
enemy, and that is my enemy. In the present machi- 
nations of the Socialists it may happen that I order you 
to shoot down your own relatives, your brothers, even 
your parents — may God spare such necessity! — but 
even then you must follow my command without de- 
mur." 

A few months later he said : 

"The soldier shall not have a will of his own. You 
have all one will, and this is my will ; there is only one 
law, and that is my law." 

The people accept this, which they reverently and 
gloriously call "discipline." Their feeling on the sub- 
ject is about as susceptible to verbal argument from the 
side of the Allies as a man-eating tiger would be to 
the billing and cooing of a conscientious objector. 

From time to time, during the present Kaiser's 
reign we have heard a good deal of "anti-militaristic 
socialism" and "turbulent scenes in the Reichstag"; 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 35 

but in spite of these titbits of cabled news, democracy 
has never been able to lift its head in Germany. In 
a speech delivered at Konigsberg on August 25, 1910, 
William II displayed to an admiring nation this gem 
of autocratic eloquence : 

"It was on this spot that my grandfather, in his own 
right, placed the royal crown of Prussia upon his head, 
emphasising once again the fact that it was bestowed 
upon him by the will of God alone, not by parliaments 
or meetings and decisions of the people, and that he 
thus regarded himself as the chosen instrument of 
Heaven, and as such carried out his duties as a ruler 
and a lord. ... I consider myself such an instrument 
of Heaven, and shall go on my way without regard to 
the views and opinions of the day." 

Some of the outside world gasped and rubbed its 
eyes, and some said, "How funny!" But the people 
of Germany went on making new streets and city 
squares and reverently affixing to them the names "Wil- 
helm," and "Hohenzollern," and "Kaiser." 

The Kaiser's address to his Eastern army in De- 
cember, 1914, should be carefully reflected upon by 
every American because nothing could more clearly 
show his attitude toward us and our allies, an attitude 
which we can not ignore, since it is backed up by the 
efficient support of the millions of his empire. In that 
memorable keynote address to his spike-headed war- 
riors of the East, he said, with admirable modesty and 
restraint : 

"Be convinced that you are the Chosen People ! 
The Spirit of God has descended upon me, for I am 
the Emperor of the Germans! 



36 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

I am the Instrument of the Most High ! 

I am His Sword and Spokesman! 

Misery and death to all those who oppose my Will ! 

Misery and death to all those who do not believe 
in my Mission! 

Misery and death to Cowards — all enemies of the 
German people shall be annihilated ! 

God has decreed their destruction; God commands 
you through my mouth to carry out his Will!" 

The Kaiser's conception of the derivation of his rul- 
ing power from heaven and his consequent irresponsi- 
bility to the people should be constantly kept in mind 
when the German system of government is under con- 
sideration. 

In America, after the thirteen original states had 
fought for and achieved their independence, they for- 
mulated a constitution under which the elected leaders 
derived all their powers from the people. It should be 
remembered that never in history have the German peo- 
ple as a whole, unlike the American, ever fought for 
freedom. No political rights have been taken away 
from them but certain rights and privileges have been 
granted them by their rulers. 

Nevertheless, the Kaiser does not govern them by 
caprice or despotic arbitrariness without any consti- 
tution. The Germans have just as real a constitution 
as we have. This phrase, however, is misleading to the 
average American who instinctively feels that when a 
thing is "constitutional" it is in accordance with some 
principle based upon the sovereignty of the people. It 
so happens, as J shall show, that the German consti- 
tution is a written negation of the positive principles 




HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 37 

of constitutional government as we understand those 
principles. 

In 1848 Frederick William IV, King of Prussia, 
granted his subjects a constitution — a weird document, 
according to our lights, but still a constitution. In 
1867, after the close of the war with Austria, at the 
instigation of Prussia, the various German state gov- 
ernments — not the people — developed from this a con- 
stitution for the twenty-two states comprising the 
North German Confederation. This in turn was ex- 
tended in 1871 into the constitution of the German em- 
pire. This document, compact, clear and straight to the 
point, is a crowning monument to Prussia and all that 
Prussia stands for. In the words of the first German 
emperor, William I, "Germany is an enlarged Prus- 
sia." 

The Kaiser has clearly defined duties and rights un- 
der the constitution, but it is important to remember 
that the people did not give them to him, after the man- 
ner of the American people to their President. He 
gave them to himself under the masterful guidance of 
Bismarck, whose pet abhorrence was the rule of the 
people. 

The eleventh article of the constitution decrees that 
"It will be the duty of the Kaiser to represent his 
Empire among the nations, to declare war, and to con- 
clude peace in the name of the Empire, to enter into 
alliances and treaties with foreign states, to credit and 
receive ambassadors." 

There is a qualification, however, which says that for 
a declaration of war in the name of the Empire the 
consent of the Bundesrat or the Eederal Council is 
required, unless an attack is made upon the federal 



38 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 






territory.* To the reader unfamiliar with the ways 
and wiles of Prussian documents this might appear a 
considerable check upon the autocracy of the Kaiser. 
Such would be the case if the Bundesrat were respon- 
sible to the people ; but it is not. 

The Bundesrat is not an upper house similar to the 
United States Senate as has been stated during the 
war by a zealous American professorial protagonist of 
Kaiserism (an "exchange professor/' — who exchanged 
his duty and loyalty to the citizens of his own country 
for the approbation of the Kaiser and his sycophantic 
coterie of German professors) — who wrote a book 
which was fathered by the German government in which 
he deliberately and dishonestly, by the use of half 

* Even if it were, the clause "Unless an attack is made upon 
the federal territory" would have given the Emperor the right 
under German reasoning in 1914 to declare war upon Russia, 
since the Kaiser and his appointees in the army and the foreign 
office so organised official correspondence that the politically 
baby-bottled German people unquestioningly absorbed the in- 
spired idea that the Kaiser had tried to preserve peace, but that 
Russia's mobilisation order, after the Kaiser had expressly told 
her that she must not issue it, was equivalent to an attack upon 
federal territory. 

What the public did not know was that their rulers, having 
determined at the Potsdam Council of July 5th upon war and 
being desirous of hastening its coming in order to reap full ad- 
vantage of their superior preparation, ingeniously forced Russia 
to mobilise by instigating a sham addition of the semi-official 
newspaper, the Lokal Anzeiger, with the headlines that Germany 
had ordered a general mobilisation. The Russian ambassador 
in Berlin of course at once telegraphed this news to Petrograd. 

The small edition of the newspaper was promptly withdrawn 
and a contradiction published, which the Russian ambassador 
also immediately telegraphed. This second telegram might have 
held up the Czar's mobilisation which was considered by the 
Russians to be a counter to the German mobilisation, had not 
the war organisers of Germany taken advantage of the fact that 
the state owns the telegraph and with characteristic Prussian 
thoroughness cleared the wires for the first telegram and blocked 
them for twelve hours in the transmission of the second. 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 39 

truths, sought to win American sympathy for Germany 
in the days when we were neutral by representing the 
governments of both countries as full of parallels. 

The Bundesrat is an institution peculiar to the con- 
stitutional system of Germany — a master-stroke of a 
masterful document which, in true Bismarckian fash- 
ion, gives the docile populace privileges with the right 
hand and takes them away with the left. A "conces- 
sion" in the German constitution bears precisely the 
same relation to the simple German citizen that bait 
on the sharp end of a hook does to a fish. 

The Bundesrat is a body of delegates appointed by 
the rulers of the several states. Prussia appoints 17; 
Bavaria 6 ; Saxony and Wurtemberg 4 each, and so on 
to a total of 58. It is not in the main a deliberative 
body, since the delegates act according to instructions, 
the delegation of each state casting a solid vote. If 
you add up the number of delegates of the states other 
than Prussia, you make the comforting discovery that 
Prussia is outnumbered by 41 votes. Prussia has not 
a majority and has surrendered her influence, you may 
say. True, she has not a majority, but it is also true 
that Prussia never yields; she only seems to yield. 
When the Prussian government announces a concession 
it is healthful for one to hone his bayonet and load his 
rifle. 

In the imperial constitution Prussia has carefully 
made provision for her lack of a majority in the 
Bundesrat. Note two important exceptions to the ma- 
jority rule of that body: 

1 — "Where there is a division of opinion concern- 
ing proposed legislation on military affairs, navy, tariff 
and certain taxes, as well as the arrangements proposed 



40 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

for carrying out the tariff and tax laws, the vote of 
Prussia is decisive if it is cast in the favour of status 
quo." 

2 — "Amendments to the constitution shall be con- 
sidered rejected when they have against them 14 votes 
of the Bundesrat." 

The "joker" in this is that Prussia's 17 delegates are 
appointed by the King of Prussia who since 1871 is 
ipso facto German Emperor, and the 17 vote in a solid 
block as he directs; therefore, according to paragraph 
1, any attempt among the other German states to liber- 
alise a militaristic nation can be legally killed by the 
war-lord who said to his army of the East, "Misery and 
death to all those who do not believe in my mission." 

All this means that reactionary, anti-democratic 
Junker Prussia can constitutionally preserve the Ger- 
man menace of militarism. Moreover, Prussia prac- 
tically controls the vote of certain other states which 
are at one with her in ideas and practices — as, for in- 
stance, mediaeval Mecklenberg, where all power and 
privilege continue to rest in the Ritterschaft, or knights 
who possess the land. 

Furthermore, the heads of all the German states may 
be counted upon to stand with the King of Prussia, who 
is the Emperor of Germany, against any innovation 
tending seriously to weaken princely and royal power. 
They can do this constitutionally through the 
Bundesrat, which is in practice nothing more or less 
than a trade-union of sovereigns. 

In regard to legislation, moreover, the Bundesrat 
works an effective check on the Reichstag. 

In form, the Reichstag might be considered an ideal 
legislative body of the people's representatives, elected 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 41 

for a term of five years upon a suffrage granting to 
every male above the age of twenty-five the right to 
cast a secret ballot. For a stranger unfamiliar with 
the German system to attend a Reichstag meeting is for 
him to believe that Germany is a land of unrestricted 
speech. When the Social Democrats have the floor — 
or, in this body, the platform — he might conclude that 
the German Empire is on the verge of becoming the 
most liberal of democracies. 

That appearances are sometimes deceitful is espe- 
cially true of Germany, as even Lord Haldane might 
now admit. 

The ably edited Arbeit er Zeitung, the Socialist organ 
of Vienna, discussing the Maurice episode which stirred 
British politics in May, 1918, in a satiric article on the 
parliaments of the Central Powers says: 

"The terrible thing is that English generals, when 
they rebel, address themselves to Parliament. Is this 
military ? The proper view of parliament for a genuine 
soldier has recently been explained to us in the instruc- 
tion for education in the German Army. There we 
are plainly told that a parliament is a talking-shop. 
What has a soldier to do with a talking shop ? — unless, 
indeed, as recently happened in Kieff in Russia, he 
has received orders to break up the talking-shop." 

The Arbeiter Zeitung is right. 

The proportion of democratic legislation growing 
out of gales of talk is abysmally low — lower than in 
any other parliament in the world. 

Why? The answer is a constitutional one. 

In the United Kingdom, in the self-governing Brit- 
ish colonies, and in general throughout the democracies 



42 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

of the world, government is based upon the will of the 
people. They constitute the broad foundation. Then 
come the people's representatives in the national legis- 
lature or parliament; higher still the members of the 
cabinet, who are likewise members of the legislature by 
virtue of popular election; then the prime minister, 
who is the actual or virtual holder of the chief execu- 
tive power. It is like a triangle based upon the people, 
with the prime minister the apex. 

This picture, with but slight variations, applies to all 
democracies, though sometimes with the substitution, 
as in the United States, of an elective head who is not 
responsible to the legislature, but draws his power di- 
rect from the people. 

In Germany there is indeed a parliament, the Reichs- 
tag, containing the people's representatives, and hence 
based upon the people's will ; but there the similarity 
with the real democracies ends. It is a similarity which 
has confused the world and soothed it while Germany 
prepared — a similarity intended by Bismarck to con- 
fuse the German people themselves. 

Instead of an unbroken succession of steps from the 
people to the chief executive of the democracy, there is 
in Germany an all-important break after the step from 
the people to the Reichstag. Here we come to quite 
another series of steps, which leads not upward but 
downward. 

The Kaiser is at the top, exercising authority not by 
the will of the people, but by the grace of God. He 
appoints an imperial chancellor and ministers of all 
departments of state — men responsible to him alone, 
and dismissed by him at pleasure. He and they con- 
stitute a cabinet of super-Germans, above the Reichs- 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 43 

tag, but not of it. From this lofty position they gra- 
ciously descend from the German political heaven until 
they come into touch with the people's representatives 
on those occasions when it is necessary to secure their 
sanction to governmental measures. 

This leads us to yet another important difference be- 
tween the parliaments of democracy and the Reichstag. 
The former normally consist of two main parties, one 
of which holds the reins of power until the people de- 
mand a change. Although so-called third parties may 
appear, and even maintain themselves for a time, they 
tend, in the course of these processes of reformation 
constantly going -on, to become absorbed into one or 
the other of the two leading groups. Our own Pro- 
gressive party is a typical case in point. 

The opposite is true in the German Reichstag, where 
parties are constantly tending to disintegrate. The 
absence of the power to form cabinets and undertake the 
constructive work of governing liberates all parties to 
go to their devious ways, and gives unrestrained play 
to the tendency toward segregation. That explains why 
there are in the Reichstag so many different parties or 
fractions — varying from ten to sixteen, in all — each 
with its party organisation and leader. 

How does the government manipulate these various 
parties? It does so through the so-called institutions 
of the "block." 

Parties were poisonous to Bismarck. He therefore 
treated them as poisons, figuratively speaking, using 
one poison as the antidote of another, so as to neutral- 
ise the action or influence of both; and his method is 
still in vogue. 

For example, if the Conservatives desire a certain 



44 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

measure which is opposed by the Social Democrats, the 
chancellor can say to the Conservatives: 

"Modify your opposition to the Social Democrats, 
or your measure will be defeated." 

Similarly he will inform the Social Democrats : 

"Withdraw some of your opposition to the Conser- 
vatives, or you will not get some other concession that 
you want." 

Thus, by forcing opposing parties to compromise 
their most extreme demands, the hands of the govern- 
ment are freed to deal with those policies or measures 
which the government most desires. Not only indi* 
vidual -parties or fractions, but groups of parties, or 
blocks, are thus pitted against one another in order 
to enable the government to push through legislative 
schemes which it regards as necessary and beneficial. 

With the exception of the Social Democrats, the Ger- 
man parties have in the main been content with this 
method. They call it "strong cabinet government mod- 
ified by parliamentary action." 

When things do not move to the Kaiser's satisfaction, 
he may decide that the chancellor has become worn out 
at the game. Then he "accepts the resignation" of that 
official, and appoints a new medicine-man who can open 
up a fresh bag of tricks. He has already done this 
twice to further the intricate politics of the war. 

Von Bethmann-Hollweg, who shouldered the burdens 
of chancellor from 1906 to July, 1917, had antago- 
nised the Pan-German disciples of "force alone" because 
he sought to reconcile gentlemanly and musical instincts 
with the peculiar duties of the Wilhelmstrasse. For his 
undiplomatic truthfulness in the confession to the 
Reichstag at the beginning of the war that his country 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 45 

was committing a wrong in entering Belgium, they 
never forgave him. In the London Times in Novem- 
ber, 1916, I predicted his downfall in the following 
paragraph : 

"The military party in Germany, who are flaying 
von Bethmann-Hollweg for his ignorance of the inten- 
tions of Britain's Dominions and of Ireland, never 
cease to throw in his teeth the fact that he had millions 
of pounds (not marks) at his back to make the neces- 
sary investigations, and that he failed. That and his 
lack of the use of ruthlessness, his alleged three days' 
delay to mobilise in 1914, are the principal charges 
against him — charges which, in my opinion, may even- 
tually result in his downfall." 

They did cause his downfall after his usefulness in 
lulling America terminated at the time Count Bern- 
storff was handed his passports. But the mere fact 
that he continued chancellor in the third year of the 
war instead of that office being filled by Tirpitz or one 
of his disciples, has changed the course of history by 
delaying our own participation. 

When Michaelis was appointed to succeed von Beth- 
mann-Hollweg, it was never intended that he should be 
more than a transition-link which would afford Ger- 
man statesmen an opportunity to "mark time" while 
the complicated events of the period were crystallising. 
After the Kaiser had "condolently accepted" the resig- 
nation of "Mark-Time-Michaelis," he appointed Count 
Hertling for a definite and highly important political 
reason. 

The remarkable feature of the appointment is that 
the new chancellor is not a Prussian but a Bavarian. 



46 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Three reasons determined the selection of a Bavarian: 

1. Friction between Bavaria and Prussia has been 
growing since 1916 because Bavaria, who is better off 
for food than is most of Prussia, refuses to share it 
and also passes strict regulations limiting Prussian 
feeders who sweep down from the North. By appoint- 
ing one man the vanity of a whole state could be ex- 
ploited. 

2. Austria having achieved her offensive war aims, 
is chafing more and more under a dragging war. 
Therefore any idea that the war was being lengthened 
because of Prussian Pan-German policies, would make 
it more difficult for the Hapsburgs to apply effectively 
the cement which keeps their mosaic empire in being. 
For this reason, since Austria's sympathy is with South 
Germany rather than with North Germany, the ap- 
pointment of a chancellor from South Germany would 
draw the fangs of the Prussian conquest idea develop- 
ing in Austria. 

3. The German rulers never lose sight in the war 
of the importance of bluffing outsiders. They have 
used, and will continue to use this weapon right through 
the peace conference. They know perfectly well that 
the outside world has been differentiating between 
Prussia and Bavaria; therefore, Hertling's appoint- 
ment would lead it to believe that Prussianism was 
waning in the German Empire before the advancing 
liberalism of the South. 

But the Prussian masters know their man. 

Hertling's "Democratic Tendencies" are best shown 
by quotations from a book of political essays, published 
in 1897, which Maximilian Harden brings to light: 






HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 47 

"Are democratic institutions and the democratic way 
of thinking really sufficient guarantees for the freedom 
of the individual ? The contrary is the case." 

"In a democratic national state, the mass of men of 
middle stature immediately turns in jealousy and mis- 
trust against any one who distinguishes himself from 
the rest by any unusual characteristic." 

"Instructive light is thrown upon the nature of 
the socialist state of the future by the tyranny which un- 
skilled and inferior workmen are wont to practice 
upon the efficient and skilled." 

"It is not necessary for the monarch to be the only 
authority in the state, but he must be the highest 
authority, and as such may not be called to account by 
any other authority. The full conception of a monarchy 
includes the rightful irresponsibility of the monarch.* 
While monarchy is only a state form existing side by 
side with other forms, the rightful foundation of kingly 
power can be derived from no other source than that 
from which all right is derived. It is the moral order- 
ing of the world which traces back to God as supreme 
creative cause. ISFot only formally, but materially the 
supreme decision rests with the monarch. He nominates 
ministers according to his own pleasure and free will. 
If in doing so he takes account of public opinion or of 
the opinion prevailing among the representatives of the 
people, he may be satisfying a requirement of wisdom, 
but not any rightful demand." 

The Kaiser himself could not do a better job on the 
divine right theory of government. 

*Throughout the book the italics are mine unless the con- 
trary is stated. 



48 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

So much for the moment for the chancellor. 

What power has the Reichstag to embarrass him to 
the rest of the Government ? Let us return to a con- 
sideration of the Reichstag. We have thus far dwelt 
upon its lack of power. 

Bismarck realised that the Reichstag really did have 
a limited amount of power and it could develop itself 
into a trouble-making organisation if the military side 
of the Government allowed things to get out of hand. 
Able and resourceful, he therefore planned to destroy 
its power by a coup d'etat, the details of which make 
his forging of the Ems telegram look almost like 
honest diplomacy. He chose the accession of Wil- 
liam II as a propitious time to put his plan into 
operation, which was to dissolve the Reichstag by the 
Emperor's authority, he counting upon such sudden dis- 
solution to lead to Socialist uprisings in the streets. 
Eighting would ensue, blood would flow. Then the 
German Emperor would declare that he could no longer 
govern under existing conditions and he would renounce 
the imperial crown. The sovereigns of all the German 
states would be called to a conference where suggestion 
would be made that the German Empire should be 
reconstituted under the presidency of the King of 
Prussia; but the King of Prussia would declare that 
he would be willing to again resume the imperial crown 
only if the imperial constitution was so altered that all 
those Germans who supported a policy hostile to the 
State, and especially all Socialists, would be disenfran- 
chised and the secret ballot abolished. 

Bismarck believed that in their patriotic excitement 
the German people would have supported this. Then, 
after their sentimental ardour had cooled, they would 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 49 

find themselves without a Parliament. They would 
thus have no forum where future discontent might be 
voiced, and any individual who started to rise up with 
Democratic ideas, would be promptly squelched by the 
military. 

Had William I still reigned, Bismarck could have 
won him to the support of this plan; but William II 
developed a temperament in youth which brooked no 
partnership in governing, much less a dictatorship from 
even the Iron Chancellor who had welded the Empire 
which became the inheritance of the young Hohenzol- 
lern. 

According to the Memoirs of Prince Hohenlohe, Wil- 
liam II told the Prince that he was unwilling to act on 
Bismarck's suggestion and thus begin his reign by shoot- 
ing his subjects in the effort to obtain a coup d'etat. 
He was confident of his strength to remain absolute by 
other means. He has thus far succeeded in keeping 
the Reichstag subjected to his will; in fact, Germany 
is a more formidable foe than had Bismarck's coup 
d'etat been carried out; for the Reichstag, with its 
speeches that are so often incorrectly gauged by demo- 
cratic nations, has proved a decoy during four years 
of war to lead the enemies of Germany into the deadly 
war-aims-talk-trap while the Kaiser behind the Reichs- 
tag veil could marshal his forces for more stupendous 
onslaughts. 

There may come a time, though, should the war go 
heavily against Germany, when Bismarck's misgivings 
may come true. These he best expressed when he wrote 
to the Conservative leader, von Heldoff, "J will devote 
the last years of my life to correcting my greatest mis- 
take — the universal vote and the secret ballot. " 



50 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

What power has the Reichstag, then, to embarrass 
the government? The tremendously important check, 
it would appear upon first consideration, of refusing to 
vote credits. This right, however, German jurists 
agree, does not mean the regular budget, but only ex- 
traordinary sources of new revenue, such as war-loans. 

Here, again, the imperial constitution comes to the 
aid of the government. The disobliging house can be 
dissolved and a new one elected within sixty days. 
This happened in 1878, 1887, 1893, and 1906, and on 
each occasion the people repudiated their representa- 
tives and sanctioned the official proposals — not neces- 
sarily because they really favoured them, but seem- 
ingly because, in the kindergarten development of their 
political life, they were awed by the firm stand of the 
government. 

Since Prussia is the dominating State in Germany, 
and Germany has been increasingly "Prussianised" 
since 1870, it is necessary to understand some pecul- 
iarities in the Prussian system of voting. The most 
burning political question in Prussian politics is fran- 
chise reform — a reform promised by the Kaiser in 
1917, but which the Prussian leaders have contrived to 
postpone again in 1918. 

A peculiar tribal system prevails in the election of 
members of the Prussian Landtag, the legislature of the 
kingdom of Prussia. Voters are divided into three 
classes, according to the amount of state taxes paid in 
each electoral district. These three classes choose the 
members of an electoral college, who then elect the mem- 
bers of the Landtag. 

The result is that some two hundred and sixty thou- 
sand wealthy taxpayers elect one-third, eight hundred 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 51 

and seventy thousand less wealthy taxpayers elect one- 
third, and the remaining six million five hundred thou- 
sand voters elect one-third. Then the first two groups, 
being for the most part Conservatives, combine to freeze 
out the representatives of the numerical majority. 
There are nearly four times as many Social Democrats 
as Conservatives in Prussia, but through the wondrous 
workings of the three-class system of voting, there are 
212 Conservatives and only 6 Social Democrats in 
the legislature. An ingenious arrangement, to be sure, 
and a great testimonial to the hypnotic powers of the 
little circle of Prussian gods who magically persuade 
the masses that the form is the substance ! 

These Prussian gods secure further power unto them- 
selves by reserving for the king the power to appoint 
the president of each of the twelve provinces into which 
Prussia is divided. Each province is further divided 
into two or more districts, thirty-five in all. At the 
head of each is a district president, also appointed by 
the crown. There is a further division into nearly five 
hundred kreise, or circles, each governed by a landrat, 
also appointed by the emperor-king. 

Though these men govern well in perhaps the ma- 
jority of cases, many of them are prone to the officious- 
ness of a bureaucratic system. They and other officials 
often exert a pernicious influence, especially in the 
rural regions, by weeding out independent tendencies 
and bending the will of those under them to be sub- 
servient to absolute monarchical ideas. Life is made 
intolerable for the recalcitrant. From personal knowl- 
edge I could give a long list of cases of men and women 
who were hounded until some of them sought refuge 
across the seas. 



52 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Descending through the system, the petty officious- 
ness of the lower officials becomes a curse in the eyes 
of a man brought up under democratic institutions. 
Many positions in the police, the railway service, and 
the post-office are given by preference to non-commis- 
sioned officers — the notorious unteroffiziere — who trans- 
fer the browbeating tactics they employed for years 
upon fresh army recruits to the people of every-day life 
with whom they come in contact in their new positions ; 
and they are by no means the only offenders. 

Speaking generally, the individuals who form the 
German bureaucracy are cowed by those above them, 
and they all unite in cowing those outside the system. 
It is difficult for a private person to get redress in 
the case of abuse of authority by an official, unless the 
case is flagrant, inasmuch as the very men who pass 
judgment are part of the system and believe in uphold- 
ing it. 

That many Germans chafe under all this is true. 
Millions have sought freedom under other flags during 
the past fifty years. There are in America to-day any 
number of citizens of German blood who are as strongly 
opposed to Kaiserism as are other Americans. But it 
is equally true that the people of William IPs empire, 
taken as a whole, acquiesce in the established system 
or even delight in it. 

,In all countries, to a greater or lesser extent, only 
the few care to assume chances in the matter of earn- 
ing a living. The many prefer a sure thing. The im- 
perial government and the various state governments 
of Germany can offer an assured livelihood to millions. 
The State owns, in some cases partly, and in others en- 
tirely, the railways, canals, telegraphs and telephones, 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 53 

forests, coal-mines, iron-mines, steel works, tobacco and 
porcelain factories, banks, lotteries, medicinal baths 
and springs, breweries, and newspapers. In Prussia, 
for example, the State is the largest proprietor of mines 
and minerals. Thus millions of Germans who have 
passed the necessary examinations and secured a "sure 
thing," and millions of other Germans who hope to 
pass into the civil service, can be counted upon to sup- 
port the existing form of government. 

Through the scientific exploitation of human van- 
ity, the government exercises another form of control 
over its servants of various degrees, including profes- 
sors, scientists, and business men. 

Some of the thousand differences between the 
United States and Germany may seem trivial ; but they 
are worth considering by all who would understand the 
situation. The Germans, when addressing one an- 
other, use titles to an extreme which we should regard 
as belonging to the realm of comic opera. They have 
been reared to honour and love labels, and they devote 
themselves to the cult with amazing whole-hearted- 
ness. 

One case, by no means exceptional, will illustrate 
the point. A few years before the war the draftsmen 
of the imperial navy-yard at Kiel became dissatisfied 
and demanded more pay. The government met the sit- 
uation with a refusal to grant their monetary demands, 
but laid before them a compensatory programme of so- 
cial advancement. After a definite number of years a 
draftsman would be permitted to use the title konstruk- 
tionsrat (construction councillor). Another period of 
years, and he would become geheimer konstruktionsrat 
(privy construction councillor). Another period, and 



54 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

he would be a wirklich geheimer konstruktionsrat 
(genuinely privy construction councillor). In address- 
ing him you say "Herr Wirklich — " and all the rest 
of it, right through to the end, and you put the same 
ponderous mass on the envelope of the letter you write 
him. 

He delights in all this, for the title marks his prog- 
ress on the social ladder. He offers up thanks to a 
benevolent government. 

The title custom has its brighter side, to be sure, 
for the visiting American. When he meets a German, 
the mere form of introduction will usually afford an 
amount of information as to the nature of the man's 
business, which the most astute insurance-agent in our 
own country could not hope to get so promptly. The 
system furthermore saves one the trouble of speculat- 
ing, during dinner, upon the probable occupation of the 
bald-headed gentleman on one's right, or the tall, intel- 
lectual-looking personage opposite. The "who's who" 
introduction eliminates all that. 

But our happy American way of looking upon for- 
eign customs from the humorous side may sometimes 
lead us into serious trouble, if we do not go to the root 
of things. The title system is no laughing matter, 
for it is one of the powerful bonds that welds the Ger- 
man people to the German government. And because 
the divine right speeches of the Kaiser sound like ex- 
cerpts from a joke-book to you, and because you would 
not care to live under his law, it does not follow that 
most of his subjects are beginning to feel the same 
way. 

It would be a mistake to think that a German can 
cite no solid arguments in favour of his system of gov- 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 55 

ernment, judged by the results accomplished under it. 
He will tell you that his system prevents a majority 
party playing politics for the spoils of office, and that 
"graft" in public expenditures is practically elimi- 
nated. He can point with justifiable pride to the sane 
and business-like management of his cities under ex- 
pert departmental heads, with mayors who are not 
elected for political reasons, but are appointed because 
they have made a professional study of the business of 
running a city. 

If the ministerial heads of a bureaucracy are benev- 
olent and endowed with wisdom, they can accomplish 
more than would usually be possible in a democracy 
with its present flaws. Since there is no "rule of the 
people" in Germany, there is little necessity for play- 
ing politics — except international — by those in the 
higher governing strata, which permits them to give 
their whole attention, with the most complete profes- 
sional and expert advice, to the work of improving ma- 
terially the whole nation. Their highly-organised, 
smoothly running system of government enables them 
to pass scientifically framed measures in regard to 
banking, manufacturing, and trade-measures conducive 
to the development of tremendous material power. 

The leaders of the German states are not always 
Simon Legrees, lashing profits from their toiling sub- 
jects. Usually they are hard working men who ad- 
vocate every reform but political ones. With respect 
to the last, however, their views accord with those of 
Frederick William IV, who was prone to talk of the 
"limited intelligence of the subject." 

Unlike most other governments, the German govern- 
ment is not simply legislative, executive and judicial. 



56 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

It is very much more. It is the supreme Board of Di- 
rectors of the manifold businesses of the people and the 
Empire. The war is teaching us that the popular idea 
in democracies that there must be a broad gulf between 
economics and politics, must be relegated to antiquity 
by every nation that hopes to keep its head above 
water in the commercial struggle that is coming. The 
German Empire never developed this idea, but from 
the first closely co-ordinated economics and politics. 

Banking, the foundation of modern business, has 
been given special attention by the German Govern- 
ment, which considers banking and commerce natural 
allies. The German banks enter actively and directly 
into trade. This they do for two reasons: Eirst, to 
secure profitable investment for their own funds, and 
secondly, to increase national prosperity. German 
banks do not coldly rebuff a man with an inventive 
idea in need of capital. 

Suppose, for example, that Herr Lehmann invents 
a new method of rubber manufacture. The mere fact 
that he may have no money doesn't make it necessary 
for him to spend years annexing some kind of "in- 
fluence" or playing into the hands of a promoter who 
will gobble up most of the profits in return for financial 
backing. Herr Lehmann simply goes to a large bank, 
the Deutsche Bank, for example, and announces his 
business. He will then be taken to a private office 
where he will be questioned by a bank official. If there 
seems to be something in his project, he will be turned 
over to one of the bank's rubber specialists, probably a 
member of the Board of Directors. If the expert pro- 
nounces the project favourable, the bank agrees to form 






HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 57 

a company in partnership with Herr Lehmann, to the 
advantage of both. 

Even though Herr Lehmann had sufficient money to 
develop his scheme, it would be better for him to form 
an alliance with the bank, because of its great power 
through its wide-spread branches of industry to get big 
orders immediately. Thus hand in hand, through the 
world, went the German manufacturer and the German 
bank — the one discovering opportunities, the other ex- 
ploiting them. 

The German banks are closely linked with one an- 
other, and all are in turn closely allied to the Reichs- 
bank (Imperial Bank). Owing to its intimate relation 
with the Reichsbank, the German Government can thus 
bring its influence to bear upon the whole structure of 
German commerce and industry. 

It is through the banking system that the Wilhelm- 
strasse plays Finanzpolitik, the policy of national and 
international politics which, backed up by the cannon, 
made the world tremble several times on the brink of 
war in advance of The Day. The building of the 
Baghdad Railway is a case in point. 

The German Government is, in short, a gigantic 
Trust which seeks to increase Germany's prosperity at 
the expense of the rest of the world. Under our own 
system, which has bred individual liberty, government 
control has been kept in the background. Had our 
trusts an alliance with a business government developed 
for the benefit of the people we should have in America 
just what we need in the modern world of competitive 
"big business." As it was, they developed evils which 
led to the Sherman Anti-trust Act. 

In Germany, where the degree of individual liberty 



58 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

is little, and government control correspondingly great, 
the German syndicates have not been curbed by the 
State but taken into partnership with it to exploit the 
outside world for the benefit of Germany. Every at- 
tempt by these syndicates to control foreign markets has 
been welcomed in the Fatherland. One aim has been to 
regularise the prices of things at home with conse- 
quent steady work and contentment to the German peo- 
ple, and to accomplish just the opposite abroad by caus- 
ing prices to fluctuate. The device by which this is 
accomplished, is "dumping," a device which Germany 
has practised most successfully upon Great Britain be- 
cause of that nation's open-door trade policy. At first 
the British public would welcome the "dumped" goods 
because they could be bought more cheaply than those 
of their own manufacture. The profits at home would 
enable the Germans to sell cheaply among the economic 
enemy until the British manufacturer was financially 
killed. Then the Germans would gradually increase the 
prices until the British consumer was paying as much, 
if not more, than he did originally, with the added 
disadvantage of the throwing out of employment of 
British workmen. Should some British manufacturer, 
tempted by the restored price, attempt to start up the 
business again, the Germans would "dump" once more 
and knock him out before he could get on his feet. 

These practical aspects of the German Government 
have securely entrenched it in the hearts of the people, 
who take kindly to a system which does something for 
them in "doing" the rest of the world. German profes- 
sors endeavour to imbue the people, unto the humblest, 
with the spirit of Der Staat hist du. (You are the 
State.) In the fourth year of the war, the prominent 



HOW THE GERMANS ARE GOVERNED 59 

Socialist, Dr. Paul Lensch, advocating a continuance 
of the system on the ground of practical economics 
which benefits the whole country, wrote : 

"The fight for the world market and the money 
market was conducted more and more with the re- 
sources of the organised power of the State. German 
diplomacy was at every moment at the service of Ger- 
man finance, and this help was all the more powerful 
the greater became the power of the State which stood 
behind German diplomacy. A strong navy and a ready 
army in the background were a precious support in the 
fight for the world market and for the division of the 
still 'unowned' remains of the earth's surface." 

There are some people in England and the United 
States who maintain that we have no right to interfere 
with the domestic affairs of another country. Ordinar- 
ily, we should not have. But when millions of indus- 
trially-efficient human ants, in blind obedience, un- 
questionably support a set of unscrupulously ambitious 
leaders, it is our duty to interfere in self-defense. 

While we may generously admire much of what the 
system has accomplished materially for Germany, and 
at the same time merely shrug our shoulders if it has 
made the German a machine cog instead of an individ- 
ual, we can no longer remain indifferent if the machine 
cog is part of a weapon aimed at our destruction. 

Such will be the role of the German citizen until 
the Imperial Constitution is so completely altered that 
even Bismarck would not recognise it. Under it all 
German soldiers take an oath of fidelity to the Kaiser, 
and they have been reared from babyhood, not only to 



60 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

obey him, but to revere him. The Constitution gives 
him, furthermore, the sole power to make peace. But 
we say that it is useless to make peace with him. So 
it is. 



CHAPTER III 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 



Among Germany's scientific accomplishments dur- 
ing the war is the "Phonograph Man." Wher- 
ever I went my ears were assailed by the same stock 
ideas reeled off in the same words and accompanied by 
the same gestures. It was as if Germans had been 
provided with an assortment of carefully-censored rec- 
ords and were incapable of doing anything except re- 
peat them. 

I could detect changes in some quarters after the first 
year and a half of the war, but up to that time, if I 
asked a Prussian what he thought of things, his machin- 
ery would begin to purr and presently he would emit a 
raucous, "We Germans fear nothing." South in Ba- 
varia, I always got the whole Bismarckian "tag," per- 
haps because King Ludwig had repeated it for the 
Press and the post-card makers of German war heroes, 
"We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world." 

Under peculiar circumstances I had a conversation 
with Herr Ulrich, a promoter of the Deutsche Bank's 
oil interests in Roumania, when we happened to travel 
together in February, 1915, from Budapest to Bucha- 
rest. Owing to the impressive nature of our meeting 
and to the fact that after I arrived in Roumania I com- 
pleted my diary of the journey, I can accurately repro- 
duce the conversation, which, in view of subsequent 
events, is enlightening. 

61 



62 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

The night before I met Herr Ulrich I was told by 
a reliable and well-informed friend in Budapest that I 
should get out of the country if possible. The "if 
possible" part of his remark was not at all reassuring. 

It so happens that in the first autumn of the war, 
while absurd and dangerous ideas were being fed to 
the British public to the effect that food shortage was 
causing bread riots in Berlin, and that the military 
losses were so enormous that old men and boys were 
being dragooned to the colours, I wrote a series of ten 
articles for the London Daily Mail, recording the sim- 
ple truth about conditions in Germany. This was so 
complimentary to German strength and efficiency that 
the Cologne Gazette and other German newspapers 
"featured" the articles in reproduction together with 
praise for the fairness of the anonymous writer. 

Unfortunately for him, however, the idea dawned in 
the brain of some German official in the Foreign News- 
Sifting Department in the Wilhelmstrasse, 76, that 
these articles were "featured" in London not to praise 
Germany, but to wake up England to the effort neces- 
sary to win. Consequently, a new "official attitude" — 
and the Press of the Central Powers was informed 
"that the writer's knowledge of Germany was suffi- 
ciently accurate to make it desirable that he be re- 
strained from further activities if caught." In fact, 
one of the Budapest papers suggested that he be shot. 

Under my own name, I had written an article about 
Alsace-Lorraine for America similar to one I had writ- 
ten in my series in London anonymously. This, I was 
told, was a dangerous link against me, which was still 
being investigated. 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 63 

The tightening frontier regulations were still loose 
compared with their later development to the acid bath 
stage. At seven o'clock that memorable February even- 
ing, I decided to make a dash from Budapest and, for 
excellent personal reasons, decided to cross the most dis- 
tant frontier, namely, that of Roumania. So, after ac- 
quainting my hotel management with the information 
that I was going to Vienna on the nine-thirty train, I 
took the nine-thirty-five train in the opposite direction 
back eastward across the plain of Hungary. 

I somehow felt lonesome for a friend as I sat in my 
sleeping compartment, so I pressed a friendly button 
which resulted in a knock at the door, which was opened 
to reveal the amiable countenance of the conductor, who, 
under the European wagon-lits system, collects tickets, 
makes and unmakes beds, dispenses drinks, and in his 
spare time receives tips. I ordered and took the occa- 
sion to give him a noticeably large one — though not 
large enough to attract undue attention — along with the 
casual information that I was an American bound for 
a short business-trip to Roumania. 

Next morning the train stopped suddenly. When I 
looked out the window I saw that we were on the broad 
cattle plain with no station in sight. I suspected the 
reason for the stop, which caused me to dress quickly. 
The door opened to admit two Hungarian gendarmes, 
complete in uniform of green, hat with feathers, the 
usual sabre on the left side, revolver on the right hip, 
and bayoneted rifle slung over the shoulder completing 
the travelling arsenals effect. 

As an introduction to conversation, they twirled 
their moustaches after immemorial custom, and asked 
me for my papers. These seemed all right, and they 



64 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

were about to pass on to inspect other passengers when 
they began to debate the probability of me being an 
Englishman and the advisability of taking me off the 
train for examination by superior officers — something 
I was anxious to avoid. Then came the grain of sand 
that turned the scales, in the person of the factotum 
conductor who broke into their conversation about me 
with the assurance that he knew me, and that I was all 
right. Thus had my investment of the night before 
blessed me a thousandfold. 

The train rolled on, and I stepped back on the rear 
platform to readjust my nerves in the fresh air. An 
intellectual, neatly-dressed German of middle age who 
was standing there, looked me over deliberately from 
head to foot and then introduced conversation in the 
interesting, if somewhat abrupt manner of: "I do 
not like you." And although clearly a German, he 
made the remark in excellent English. 

I apologised for my personal appearance, whereupon 
he replied, "It is not entirely that — only so far as it 
shows that you are American. I hate you, because I 
hate America," he continued rather frankly. 

Under ordinary circumstances, bitter language might 
have gushed on both sides ; but in my dread of the fron- 
tier ordeal before me that night I found the stranger's 
frankness such an antidote that I forgot my troubles 
and liked him. I even invited him to breakfast, dur- 
ing which he became more affable toward me person- 
ally while he explained the war. 

He showed renewed interest when I confided to him 
that I was an American journalist. He returned the 
information that he was Herr Ulrich, prominent in the 
management of oil interests backed by the Deutsche 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 65 

Bank. He insisted that his war-opinions were those 
of tens of millions of his countrymen. I soon saw that 
he was right, and all day long I got government records 
from the Phonograph Man. 

Herr Ulrich, gazing out at the train window, began a 
record which was then almost new, but rapidly becom- 
ing popular: "Belgium," he said, "has cost a lot of 
money and a lot of blood. Indeed, she has cost so 
much money and so much blood that we can not ever 
consent to give her up." 

"By a parity of reasoning," I reflected, — but, mind- 
ful of the frontier, kept my reflections to myself, — "a 
burglar who received some hard knocks in the practice 
of his profession should be entitled to compensation 
from the unkilled members of the home which he had 
burglarised." 

"Besides, in the end it will not be so bad for the Bel- 
gians; for we Germans can make many improvements 
there," he continued. 

I asked Herr Ulrich if he was certain of victory. 

"Jn from three to six months," he replied. 

"What about England ?" I enquired. "They say she 
has a pretty stout army yet to go into the field." 

"Pooh!" said Ulrich. "That's English bluff. We 
know that for all their drumming and advertising, Kit- 
chener can not get men, and the English won't tolerate 
conscription. They could not get the men voluntarily, 
and now it is too late to get them in any other way. 
Suppose even that they could get men ! What of their 
officers ? We know how long it takes to train an officer. 
They don't. Furthermore, they would have no equip- 
ment for their men, and if they had, where are their 
Casernen (barracks) ? It has taken us years to develop 



66 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

all these. But why discuss such matters ? — since Eng- 
land can not get men." 

After these observations, he settled back in the cor- 
ner of his compartment, where I joined him, extracted 
a leather case of cigars from his pocket, selected one, 
folded the case and put it back. Between puffs, he re- 
marked with satisfaction: "Besides, the English do 
not know what we have in hand. There are some colos- 
sal surprises. Kolossal!" 

This, of course, switched the conversation to the sub- 
marine blockade which had just been inaugurated — 
Germany's newest and greatest fetish since her armies 
dug into position-warfare — worshipped with overween- 
ing pride by Germans, and something like a genial 
envy by Austrians. At that stage of the war it appeared 
to me that even the phonograph men took pride in try- 
ing to invent obvious exaggerations about the effects of 
the submarine warfare. It was the great "surprise" — 
the overwhelming and unanswerable naval argument 
which the Germans had kept up their sleeves. 

"England has boasted that she is mistress of the seas. 
We Germans do not boast. We quietly prepare and 
unexpectedly strike. England, Mistress of the Seas !" 
he scoffed. "Why, we have bottled up her navy with 
our submarines, blockaded her ports, and are fast caus- 
ing her flag to disappear from every ocean." 

This little speech, with variations, made a popular 
record which all Germans were playing whose easily 
recognised "tag" was, "The English flags have disap- 
peared from the seas." ~No collection of government- 
canned conversation was complete without it. 

After luncheon, we began to discuss France, and then 
Herr Ulrich showed unconsciously how hopelessly in- 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 67 

consistent is the phonographic conception of the world 
at war. Before luncheon he had told me that Kitchener 
could not scrape more than a million men by any 
means ; now he asserted that the French had been ready 
to make peace some months ago but that England had 
threatened to bombard her ports if she did. The 
French were fighting bravely — so much he was willing 
to admit — but, poor devils ! they had no choice. 

"The real secret of France's failure to make peace," 
he gravely assured me, "was that all along behind the 
French front are drawn up lines of English troops, 
whose presence is a constant threat to the French if 
they should attempt to give way." 

It is clear, of course, that Herr Ulrich had got two 
records mixed, somehow, because the authorities of the 
Press Bureau who originate all these records, would 
not have been quite so inconsistent. 

Nevertheless, what he had said about France con- 
tinuing the war on England's account, absurd and 
trivial as it may seem, was part of that famous record, 
labelled, "England will fight to the last Frenchman," a 
record which echoed across the lines through bleeding 
France where it was played in variant keys by Bolo 
and the other traitors who accepted the gold that pays 
the invisible army of the Fatherland. 

I was wondering how soon the American end of the 
blockade business would creep into the conversation. It 
came in the late afternoon, after we had watched the 
castellated hill near Segesvar pass slowly from sight 
amid the windings of the train. 

"A new kind of war has made a new kind of law," 
Herr Ulrich began. He had just found the "tag" in 



68 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

a copy of the Vienna Beichspost and was adding it to 
his collection. 

"Germany gave fair warning," he continued. "No 
other nation would have done that. Therefore, no one 
can complain. As for America, if she wants to avoid 
trouble, she need only keep her ships out of European 
waters. As for her citizens, they have no legitimate 
reason to be travelling now in Europe. Europe is at 
war. Besides, this war is tremendously profitable to 
America." 

Ah, how many times had I already heard this last 
record ! How many times was I still to hear it ! I for- 
got the frontier troubles and waxed sarcastic. "Sure !" 
I observed. "That is why America started the war !" 

But sarcasm is buttoned foil to the impervious Ger- 
man. Herr Ulrich merely stared compassionately. 

"What would you do if we sank one of your ships ?" 
he demanded. 

"Ask for compensation," I replied. 

"But suppose we sank the American crew?" he en- 
quired. 

"Well, I suppose we should have to " 

"Have to fight us ? Well, the more enemies, the more 
glory." 

Herr Ulrich positively swelled with pride, as he got 
off this ancient "tag" of the first August of the war. 

"All the same, I will tell you why you will not fight. 
You see, I know your country just as I know Eng- 
land. I have even had the pleasure of visiting your 
ship-yards. Did you ever go aboard one of your Amer- 
ican submarines and inspect it thoroughly ?" 

I confessed that my pre-war education had been ne- 
glected in that line. ,1 could only drag up the historical 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 69 

bit of information that the submarine was an Amer- 
ican invention. 

Herr Ulrich appeared to overlook the second part of 
my answer. "Just think ! you are an American, I am 
a German ; and I have been on one of your submarines, 
and you have not. We Germans know England better 
than the English, Russia better than the Russians ; and 
certainly we know Russia better than her allies know 
her. In Bucharest, to-morrow, where I attend a very 
important meeting at our Legation, I expect to learn 
new comforting things about Russia. I smile when I 
read English, Erench and American papers which tell 
of how the great 'steam-roller' from the East will crush 
us. You are all ignorant of Russia. You are espe- 
cially ignorant in America where size and bulk are the 
basis of all your judgment. The Russian Empire is 
vast on the map, and Russia, has a hundred and seventy 
millions; therefore, you in your ignorance believe Rus- 
sia correspondingly powerful. We, in our intelligence, 
know that Russia is a colossus stuffed with straw, as 
von Ehrenthals long ago remarked. 

"As for France, at the outbreak of war, our maps 
of that country were more up-to-date than those of the 
Erench. So, too, do we know America better than do 
the Americans. That is why I can so calmly assure you 
that you will not fight. You cannot fight, for your 
country is composed of not enough soldiers and of too 
many Germans." 

And Herr Ulrich's trace of a smile seemed to betoken 
compassion for a helpless citizen of a helpless repub- 
lic. 

The train curved sharply; and through the carriage 
window we saw against the cold winter sunset a hill 



70 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

rise abruptly from the plain, — a hill topped with old 
walls of yellowish-grey and back of it a higher pine- 
clad hill which frowned like a sentinel across the track. 
Cradled amid these slopes was Brasso — or Kronstadt, 
as the Germans call it, — but which the Hungarians re- 
fuse to call it. fit is the last important town of Hun- 
gary. 

Herr Ulrich began to collect his baggage. 

"You would do much better to stop off at Kronstadt," 
he said. "You will find accommodations greatly supe- 
rior to those at Predial. Moreover, there are several 
thousand good old German inhabitants of the city, and 
they create an atmosphere which improves these stupid 
Hungarian towns. At Predial you will find noth- 
ing but Hungarian-Roumanian mountaineers — disagree- 
able folks, both of them." 

Although he was speaking English, I felt his remarks 
to be rather tactless in view of the fact that a Hungarian 
who had passed back and forth in the corridor several 
times during the afternoon, had now paused outside 
our compartment. Perhaps he did not understand Eng- 
lish, but his appearance bespoke an education which 
made me regret my German companion's disparagement 
of a country which I had often found full of charm. 

I knew the region even more intimately than did 
Herr Ulrich. I had tramped it all in every direction 
from Brasso, and I knew the trails through the moun- 
tain passes leading into Roumania eighteen miles ahead 
so thoroughly, that, in my anxiety, now that the ordeal 
of crossing the frontier was at hand, I seriously thought 
of getting off at Brasso and taking my chances on 
foot. I reflected, however, that it was Germany who 
was investigating me, and that her co-ordination with 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 71 

distant Hungarian-Roumanian frontiers might be fa- 
vourably loose; so I resolved to stick to the train and 
"Smile, smile, smile." 

,1 stepped on to the platform, and chatted with Herr 
Ulrich a few moments. Then, when I turned back, I 
saw a man who clearly recognised me jump down to 
meet me. He smiled pleasantly and held out his hand. 
He was an officer of the border patrol, with whom I had 
become friendly in days gone by. We were glad to 
see each other again, and talked like long-lost brothers 
while the train, with two engines, twisted up the Predial 
Pass, — the pass over which Falkenhayn later forced his 
way down to the oil fields of Roumania. 

As a matter of form, my friend told that he would 
look at my passport. He did so, and returned it to 
me. 

"I wonder if you could do something for me at the 
American Legation in Bucharest?" he asked. 

I told him that I should be very glad to, if it were 
something quite in order. 

He explained that he would like the investigation of 
a dear friend who was a prisoner in Serbia. He said 
that he had written several times to the Legation, but 
the matter was still pending. I promptly assured him 
that I would give the affair my attention immediately 
upon my arrival at Bucharest. Therefore, the quicker 
I got there, the better for both of us. He then wrote 
down his friend's name and some data concerning him. 

I put this carefully in my pocket, then casually re- 
marked, "J hope, in their frontier zeal, your examin- 
ing officer will not insist on keeping this." 

He smiled. "I will see that you are quickly trans- 
ported across the frontier," he said. "You will remem- 



72 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ber," he continued, "that half of the station at Predial 
is in Hungary and half in Roumania." 

He then passed along to continue his inspection of the 
train. 

The night now gathering in the valleys was climbing 
slowly to the mountain tops, while on the rough high- 
way that paralleled the track, long lines of bullock- 
carts were blending with the shadows — carts drawn 
up to the frontier to bring back the goods smuggled from 
the Roumanian side. 

When my officer friend returned from his inspection 
of the train he told me that if I would give him my 
passport he would have it quickly viseed, would see that 
my baggage was promptly examined and would per- 
sonally conduct me to the Roumanian half of the sta- 
tion. 

The train stopped. I steeled myself for the ordeal 
which did not come; for my friend kept his word, and 
within three minutes I stood alone, across the barrier, 
in Roumania. Of course he could only take me out of 
Hungary, after which I had to undergo the Roumanian 
examination. But my heart was light as I looked back 
at the enemy's side, where a concourse of Germans, 
Austrians, Hungarians and Roumanians were in the 
throes of rigorous investigation. 

The first person I encountered in the Predial- 
Bucharest express next morning, was Herr TJlrich, 
whose appearance suggested a restless night. 

"My meeting with you yesterday," he began abrupt- 
ly, "proved most unfortunate. Indeed, it nearly 
wrecked my very important meeting at our Legation 
in Bucharest. You got me into trouble." 

Before ,1 could express solicitude and ask him how 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 73 

on earth I could have got him into trouble, he snapped : 

"Did you have great difficulties at the frontier ?" 

My innocent reply that I had found officialdom most 
delightful, seemed to increase his anger. 

"Do you remember that we spoke English all day 
yesterday?" he blurted out. 

I did. 

"Do you remember that damned Hungarian ?" — ■ 
(He pronounced it dam — ned, with two syllables, as in 
Shakespeare courses at college.) "The one standing 
outside the door when we neared Kronstadt ?" 

I remembered the gentleman. 

"He was a detective!" cried Herr Ulrich. "A stupid 
Hungarian detective. Because we talked English, his 
suspicions were aroused; and, do you know — it was I 
whom he suspected! You are an American, virtually 
an enemy; I am a German and an ally. Yet I was 
held, and you went free !" 

"It does seem rather weird!" I agreed sympathetic- 
ally. 

"Perhaps from this you may better realise the great- 
ness of Germany. We have to supply the brains for 
Austria-Hungary as well as for ourselves " 

Herr Ulrich paused in his tirade to get his breath, 
which afforded me an opportunity to ask: "But you 
had papers, did you not, to verify yourself? Your 
trouble must have been of very brief duration!" 

"I did have papers," he began with vigour, "and my 
trouble was not of brief duration. 

"When I saw that they meant business, I told them 
they could telegraph to Berlin and verify me. They 
said that, owing to military operations, the telegraph 
lines would be closed for non-essential messages for 



74 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

forty-eight hours, and that they would write. I was 
filled with horror at the thought their insanity might 
prevent me reaching Bucharest in time. Then I 
thought of you !" 

I expressed my appreciation by bowing slightly. 

"What about that American who was with me?" I 
asked them. "Why haven't you arrested him? They 
told me that you were in excellent standing with the 
frontier police, as witnessed by the detective when we 
got off the train at Kronstadt. They insisted further 
that the detective was excellent in his profession, and 
that your accent clearly showed you were an Amer- 
ican, but that my command of English was perfect, 
and my accent unmistakably English." 

At which Herr Ulrich paused, his anger seeming to 
evaporate as he let his thoughts linger over this Hun- 
garian tribute to his mastery of a foreign tongue. "My 
English is very good, don't you think so?" he inter- 
polated. 

I could honestly agree that it was flawless. 

"But I am persistent. Persistency is a German 
trait," he explained. "I pressed the matter of the im- 
portance of my business, and when I seemed to be win- 
ning, I was struck with a brilliant idea and made use 
of the fact that you were in the good graces of the 
frontier guards. Therefore I stretched a point upon 
our short acquaintance and insisted that I was a very 
good friend of yours, and that inasmuch as you were 
declared all right, I must be all right. This may seem 
to you an absurd argument for me to introduce, but one 
is likely to do anything when desperate. At seven 
o'clock they told me I could go to my hotel. I did so 
and tried to eat, but the horrible thought that I might 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 75 

miss the Legation meeting took away my appetite. I 
tried to read, but my eyes wandered from the pages. 
Then I went to bed, but could not sleep. I turned and 
tossed all night. At five I began to dress, feeling very 
nervous at the thought that the train on which I should 
ride would be leaving at six-forty. There was a knock 
on my door, and the portier entered with an official 
message. I tore it open, and to my joy saw that it was 
the permission to depart. The portier told me that it 
had been given him at eleven the night before with in- 
structions to deliver it at five-thirty in the morning. 
However, 'All's Well that Ends Well !' And I am glad 
to be here. But I have had little rest since we parted 
back in Kronstadt." 

Whereupon Herr Ulrich settled back in the cushions 
and sighed again. 

I might have ventured my opinion that these very 
astute Hungarians had resolved to make him uncom- 
fortable — in order to get even with him for his uncom- 
plimentary remarks to me in the train about everything 
Hungarian. I refrained from doing so, however, since 
I felt that it might temporarily blunt his frank expres- 
sions of his opinions of other countries, including my 
own. 

He became interested again after the train had com- 
pleted the grinding journey down the mountains and 
came in sight of the towering steel skeletons that marked 
the oil fields of the plain. 

"We Germans have great interests here," he began, 
then jumped to the opposite window to watch a freight 
train pass. 

"Do you see those?" he cried, excitedly. "They are 
all German cars, and they are running on Roumanian 



76 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

tracks," he said in a tone which clearly showed a re- 
turn to the national pride form of the day before. "We 
have completed a commercial arrangement in which 
Roumania has agreed to sell us grain if we supply the 
cars to haul it." 

And |I might have added that Roumania was mak- 
ing them pay through the nose for what they got. 

"Soon we shall arrive in Bucharest," he began after 
a long pause, "where we part, and I have been reflect- 
ing that I should express myself frankly to you. I gave 
you some German war opinions yesterday. They are 
not confidential, and they are not simply mine; but 
again I repeat they are the opinions of millions of my 
fellow-countrymen. I wish to add something, for per- 
haps there is still time for you and other American 
journalists who have come to Germany, to save your 
country. As I have already told you, we have some 
colossal surprises. Why, do you know that after the 
war future generations will see in London the greatest 
monument of history — a monument to German science 
and German victory?" 

"Will it be more colossal than the National Denk- 
mal on the Rhine, or the mammoth statue of Bismarck 
in Hamburg?" I innocently asked. 

"It will be different," Herr Ulrich explained pa- 
tiently and gently. "It will be whole districts of Lon- 
don rebuilt. Think of the effect on future generations 
of Englishmen when they visit London and ask why 
some parts of the city are so much more beautiful and 
better constructed than the rest. They will be told that 
this is because Germans rebuilt the parts which their 
Zeppelins destroyed as a punishment during the Great 
War. The English have been deluded. Perhaps even 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 77 

before tlie war is over, they may realise that and rise in 
rebellious anger against the man who tricked them, — 
Sir Edward Grey." 

By this time, J was staring in blank amazement at 
the man, which he probably mistook for wonderment 
and admiration on my part for Germany's power as re- 
vealed by him. So in deadly earnest he continued : 

"But the English will have to rise quickly, or they 
will be too late to save themselves. You remember I 
told you yesterday that we shall win the war in from 
three to six months. We are certain to do it. All 
Europe will lie prostrate at our feet — and Egypt too. 
Then what shall we do ?" 

"Introduce German customs after the manner of 
conquerors," I suggested. "Perhaps you will improve 
the Pyramid of Cheops with a little summit terrace, 
beer garden, and observation tower ?" 

Herr TJlrich brushed this aside with the cutting re- 
mark that it was a German custom to respect and leave 
unaltered the historic treasures of the enemy. "I fear 
you do not perceive the natural sequence of events in 
this war," he added somewhat impatiently. "Can you 
not see that after we have conquered Europe, we Ger- 
mans shall be in a position to demand full indemnity 
from America for the damage she has caused us by her 
unneutral furnishing of our enemies with munitions 
of war? That is what I mean when I say that you 
American journalists should inform your readers and 
tell them that the sooner they stop this unneutral prac- 
tice, the more trouble they will save themselves when 
we are free to take up their case." 

We rosejiow to gather our baggage; for the brakes 
were on for Bucharest. As we parted on the platform 



78 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

to go to different hotels, Herr TJlrich bade me good-bye 
with: "Remember, we are disappointed in America. 
We hate her because we have reason to hate her. Do 
your duty while there is still time. Tell her of Ger- 
many's power and warn her. Warn her!" 

Twenty months had passed since that parting in Bu- 
charest in the first February of the war, an occasion 
when I fully believed that my war-time trips to see 
Germany first-hand were over. But the fortunes of war 
gave me a chance to reshuffle the cards — and, believing 
that I had fixed things, I steeled myself for yet another 
frontier, this time the Dutch-German, in December, 
1915. But things were only partly fixed. Though 
I was not arrested, I could not get out of Germany for 
nearly a year. Then I managed to do so in a story al- 
ready told.* 

Before leaving, my curiosity overcame my prudence, 
and I resolved to seek out Herr TJlrich to ascertain his 
latest war convictions. So I telephoned him and ar- 
ranged an appointment. 

Twenty months after our parting in Bucharest, I 
stood outside his office door, twenty months after he 
had told me to warn my country that the war would 
be over in from three to six. Tte door opened, and I 
stood before Herr Ulrich, oil promoter and partner in 
enterprise of the Deutsche Bank. I don't know why 
my gaze became riveted on two books upon his desk. 
A matter of no consequence, these books — one might 
feel ! I am not so sure. I saw that one was a Russian 
grammar, the other a simple Russian reader. Herr 
Ulrich followed my gaze and explained: 

* "The Land of Deepening Shadow"— Chapter XXVII. 



THE PHONOGRAPH MAN 79 

"I am a broad-minded man, and having long ago per- 
fected myself in English and French, I have just now 
taken up the study of Russian as an intellectual diver- 
sion. I believe that we Germans are going to pay 
much more attention to the study of Russian in our 
schools in the future." 

"For intellectual diversion !" I ventured. 

"For purposes of business," Herr Ulrich corrected 
simply. 

There was a pause as I grappled for a thread to link 
us with the past. Herr Ulrich sighed. 

"When is this terrible war going to end?" he asked 
wearily. 

Apparently all his old phonograph records had been 
scrapped. "We Germans want what we always wanted : 
to live in peace and to let other nations live in peace. 
Do you never feel that America will neglect an oppor- 
tunity seldom offered to any nation if she does not act 
soon ?" 

I jacked myself up for another indemnity, but I was 
wrong. 

"Europe is torn against itself," said Herr Ulrich. 
"Our enemies should see that they can never defeat us ; 
but, on the other hand, they are so many that it is dif- 
ficult for us to conquer them all. There are some peo- 
ple in England who would be willing to talk peace just 
as we Germans would ; but perhaps they, like us, see no 
way to bring the matter to a head. That is America's 
opportunity — her golden opportunity for humanity." 



War is the sternest teacher in the world. To be sure, 
tens of millions of Germans continue to play govern- 



80 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ment records like phonograph men ; but in spite of this, 
a few Germans have begun to question, — generally to 
themselves, because it is safer so. 

Will this questioning attitude increase until some 
day, as the citizens of Paris marched down the Boule- 
vard St. Germain to storm the Bastille, the citizens of 
Berlin will march up Unter den Linden to wreck the 
Idea Factory in the Wilhelmstrasse ? 

Will the German people overthrow their rulers? 



CHAPTER IV 

SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 

IN a war of endurance, each side yearns for revolu- 
tions among its enemies. 

The overthrow of Czardom in the spring of 1917 by 
the people of Russia was hailed through wide circles 
among the Allies as the forerunner of the overthrow 
of Kaiserism by the people of Germany and Austria- 
Hungary. This idea was receiving such increasingly 
wide credence in England that it impelled me to write 
an article for the Daily Mail in April, 1917, entitled, 
"Revolutionary Rot about Germany" in which I set 
down some excellent reasons why there was no prob- 
ability of the Hohenzollerns going the way of the Roma- 
noffs for a considerable time. 

About ten o'clock on the morning of publication, the 
office boy announced, "A gentleman, sir, with most ur- 
gent business." ^1 asked the messenger to find out what 
the urgent business was ; whereupon he came back with 
the reply that it concerned revolution in Germany and 
could not wait. "Revolution in Germany" being 
classed in the "urgent business" column, the stranger 
was promptly admitted. He entered, breathing hard 
under the excitement of what he had to deliver. 

"I am a frank man," he began, "and I know that 
you will not take my criticism unkindly. Since I read 
your article at breakfast, I have been able to think of 

81 



82 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

nothing else. I believe that such an article is exceed- 
ingly detrimental." 

"To which side?" I asked. 

"To our side — to England, of course. You are a 
pessimist and associated with a pessimistic lot of news- 
papers; and pessimism depresses people." 

"On the contrary," I replied, "I am very optimistic 
about beating Germany if we go at it in the right way — 
which is not the way of the ostrich." Then I added 
that the majority of his countrymen impressed me 
with the fact that there were no people on earth who 
more desired hard, cold facts and were willing to face 
them. 

"But about this German revolution," he said. "You 
believe that the German people will not revolt this year ? 
Well, J. do ! All the signs point to it." 

When I asked him what these signs were, he cited 
some recent Reichstag speeches of Social Democrats 
which had been printed in London papers. 

I admitted that these speeches, taken in themselves, 
did look very comforting from our point of view — then 
I added that fractional truth could be misleading; that 
the Germans had specialised in it, and the Allies had 
by no means entirely avoided it. 

The trouble with this man was that he was judging 
enemy institutions by those that he knew. He did not 
understand how the Germans were governed and the 
exact status of the Reichstag, or Imperial Debating So- 
ciety, in that scheme of Government. He was, in short, 
unmindful of the thousand differences ! 

He was especially unmindful of the fact — a fact that 
has continued to exist through four years of war, that 
ever since the people of Prussia and other German 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 83 

states allowed themselves to be tricked by promises in 
1848 when they had victory in their grasp, democracy 
has always given way to militarism when a test arose. 

The unconsidered trifles of every-day life are symp- 
tomatic of the texture of a nation. 

One afternoon, in the third year of the war, while 
walking in Charlottenburg, I noticed a soldier ahead of 
me with one arm missing from the shoulder and the 
other done up in a sling. A Red Cross nurse walked 
by his side, for he was clearly still weak and only in- 
dulging in a short respite from the hospital. They 
paused, while she put a cigar in his mouth and lighted it. 

They had again resumed their walk when I noticed 
a captain striding toward us. I felt sorry for the man 
ahead and was just reflecting upon the opportunity 
which an officer would now have to show by a kindly 
nod his appreciation of a soldier's sacrifice. I saw 
something quite the contrary. When abreast of the 
man, the captain whirled on him with an oath, snarling 
that he was violating a regulation of the German army. 

Technically, the officer was correct in his charge ; for 
there is a regulation which commands privates to re- 
move from their mouths that which they are smoking 
when they are passing an officer. One might suppose, 
however, that an armless man should be a logical ex- 
ception to the rule; but such a one would not be en- 
dowed with the pigeon-hole regulation mind which the 
German system tends to develop. 

After the browbeating, the man and the officer con- 
tinued their respective ways. Before thirty paces, how- 
ever, the rage of the latter, seething for an outlet, 
caused him to turn back sharply to overtake his victim, 
whom, after passing, he whirled to face. The victim 



84 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

stopped abruptly ; his heels clicked sharply together, his 
body became rigid, head up, eyes straight ahead, while 
from his lips came the mechanical "Zu Befehl, Herr 
Hauptmanru' (at your command, Mr. Captain). The 
captain, livid with rage, advanced without a word, 
struck the cigar from the man's mouth, then passed on. 
The honour of the army had been upheld ! 

I learned the names of both and gave full details to 
a Social-Democratic member of the Reichstag who in- 
dignantly brought the matter to the attention of the 
Ministry of War with the demand that the officer be 
punished. Though the War Department, "deeply re- 
gretted the occurrence," it refused to censor the officer 
on the ground that German military efficiency de- 
pended in a great measure for its success upon unques- 
tioning obedience of officers and men to regulations, 
which made it desirable not to encourage officers to 
make exceptions to general rules inasmuch as a rule 
would work nine hundred and ninety-nine times out 
of a thousand. Thus the incident closed. 

But another street incident, this one in 1913, had 
momentous historical consequences. Late in the au- 
tumn of that year, the forty-second after the fortunes of 
war had transferred Alsace-Lorraine to Germany, a 
Prussian lieutenant, while marching his men through 
the Alsatian hamlet of Dettweiler, some five miles from 
Zabern, ran after a group of civilians who had laughed 
at Prussia's soldiery. Overtaking a solitary, panting 
straggler, a lame cobbler, the young officer slashed open 
the side of the man's head with his sabre. 

The officer's name was Lieutenant von Forstner. 
Some weeks earlier he had created a storm of ill feeling 
by telling a recruit that he would pay him ten marks if 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 85 

he stabbed a wackes — wackes being a slurring name ap- 
plied to the Alsatians, and deeply resented by them. 
The citizens of Zabern protested through the proper 
municipal officials, but the protest only caused the sol- 
diery to become the more domineering. Friction grew, 
the natives often laughed during the passing of troops, 
and Colonel von Reuter, contrary to law, treated the 
city as if it were in a state of siege. 

Finally the colonel sent out a boy of nineteen, Lieu- 
tenant Schad, to make arrests. Schad did so, and pro- 
miscuously ; apprehending, among others, a ' civilian 
judge and counsel just leaving court. The prisoners 
were forced into a coal-cellar, and left there overnight. 

In Berlin the Reichstag boiled with indignation ; the 
Social Democrats, in particular, clamoured for the ar- 
rest and punishment of the guilty officers; Germany's 
better side momentarily flashed clear and bright. Civil 
anger increased when General von Lalkenhayn, Prus- 
sian minister of war, stepped before the Reichstag to 
defend and glorify every act of the military. The 
Crown Prince became the darling of militarism by his 
famous telegram: 

"ISTur fest drauf los !" (ISTow let them have it hot !) 

Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg see-sawed before 
the Reichstag with the meaningless, hedging, Delphic 
platitudes of diplomacy ; whereupon that body employed 
the new weapon — or rather toy — of censure granted it 
the preceding May, and passed an overwhelming vote 
of two hundred and ninety-three to fifty-four against 
him. Did that disturb him in the least? Not that 
anybody has ever been able to discover. He calmly 
told the Reichstag that he was responsible only to the 



86 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Kaiser, and left for Donaueschingen to confer with his 
master. 

The storm continued and to the outside world it ap- 
peared as if Prussian militarism might be overwhelmed 
and crushed by popular disapproval. The great court 
scene was set in Strassburg, with the judiciary en- 
sconced behind a hedge of spiked helmets. The leit- 
motif of the drama was struck by the youthful Lieu- 
tenant Schad when he addressed the court as if it were 
an awkward squad in a barracks-yard. 

Why is this incident of the period before the war im- 
portant now? Because it raised in Germany a clear- 
cut issue between a militaristic and a civil state. The 
former won, the democratic ebullition cooled down ; and 
thus, set in the affair of Zabern, the curtain was rung 
up on the first act of the gigantic world-struggle between 
autocracy and democracy. 

In the following year came the war, which magne- 
tised parties and people into the most complete unity 
ever achieved by a great nation, a happy, boastful unity 
of sweeping victories, heavy indemnities, and early 
peace to the united chorus of "Deutschland iiber alles." 
But in 1916, under the stress of war, cracks began to 
appear in the unity with which the government assid- 
uously pours cement. Until then all parties had loy- 
allj supported the war policy of the government; but 
the unanimous support was slightly fractured when 
18 members of the Social Democratic party withdrew 
from the 111 who comprised the party. 

Thus of the 397 deputies of the Beichstag, only 18 
(less than 5 per cent.) have arrayed themselves against 
the policy of a government in four years of a war which 
began with the assumption that Belgium was not a 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 87 

country but a highway — a policy which has thrown 
treaties and agreements to the winds, dragged Belgians, 
French and Poles into slavery, sanctions the sinking 
of neutral vessels without warning — a policy which 
has forced the civilised world to band itself together 
like a sheriff's posse to hunt down a lunatic gunman. 

The 18 protesters, who constitute the Social Demo- 
cratic Minority party, which the reader must carefully 
distinguish from the 93 Social Democrats who consti- 
tute the regular, or Majority, party, — these 18, are now 
known in Germany as the U-Socialists, and they are as 
generally unpopular as the U-boats are popular. In 
the first case, the "U" stands for unabhangiger (inde- 
pendent) ; in the second case, it stands for untersee 
(under the sea). 

The regular Social Democrats have thus far allowed 
themselves to be government-controlled; indeed, their 
"parliamentary actions" are often looked upon by the 
government as extremely useful for export purposes. 
They are best described as "tame" Socialists. 

It is the speeches of the Social Democratic Minority, 
together with an occasional one from the Social Demo- 
cratic Majority, which make such pleasant reading 
for Germany's enemies. More people read these 
speeches in England or in France or in the United 
States than in Germany, where for the most part they 
are made to empty benches, printed only in the Social 
Democratic newspapers and even there in unobtrusive 
Parliamentary type, without "feature" headings, since 
those must be reserved, as in all other German papers, 
for German victories. 

Furthermore, they are seldom read by German sol- 
diers, as the military scissors are extremely sharp in 



88 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

deleting anything that may prove injurious to the hel- 
meted mind. 

German politics, in general, have developed during 
1917 and 1918 three currents in the "German Revolu- 
tion." Sometimes these are distinct and again they 
tend to merge. They are: 

1. Revolution. This in the extreme desire violently 
to overthrow the existing form of government and es- 
tablish a republic or a socialistic state. This current 
is still weak after four years of war. 

2. Constitutional Reform — an attempt to achieve 
this has been spasmodically made by a few Reichstag 
members and newspapers, the most courageous and in- 
telligent leader being Theodor Wolff, editor of the sane 
and radical Berliner Tageblatt, a financially powerful 
organ whose liberal utterances cause it to be frequently 
strafed by the military commandant of the Mark of 
Brandenburg. Wolff is a Jew, with ten years' journal- 
istic experience in Paris. 

Reforms which have been advocated for years are: 
first, the abolition of the three-class system of voting 
in Prussia — a reform promised by the Kaiser in 1917 
and successfully fought off by the Junkers in 1918. 
They know that a "one-man-one-vote" system would 
mark the beginning of the end of German feudalism. 

The second reform advocated was the redistribution 
of the Reichstag districts which, constituted in 1871, 
sacrifices the populous industrial cities, with their large 
Social Democratic vote, to the more reactionary agri- 
cultural districts. 

The third reform is that of ministerial responsibility 
to the Reichstag, i.e., a building up of the triangle based 
upon the people with the Chancellor at the apex instead 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 89 

of the Chancellor and ministers constituting a cabinet 
of super-Germans who derived their power from the 
clouds through the medium of the Kaiser. 

3. Peace Terms. This diverse current did not exist 
in those happy months for Germany when she was 
winning hands down. It developed chiefly through 
the differences of opinion among Germans regarding 
how much they could get from their enemies and how 
great sacrifices they were willing to make in the get- 
ting. 

Germany's enemies frequently fall into the error of 
failing to distinguish these three currents. Some day 
the dislodging hammer blows of the Allied armies and 
blockaders may cause these three disturbing currents 
to rise and rush together into a resistless torrent 
which will sweep away the whole structure of auto- 
cratic feudal bureaucracy, even as the force of the 
sun loosens in the spring the snows that cling to the 
mountain sides, causing little streams to swell to- 
gether into destructive torrents. 

In its early stages, the Russian revolution produced 
fever-waves through Europe which increased the rest- 
lessness of the people of Germany and Austria-Hun- 
gary in their "struggle toward democracy." Indeed, 
had the Russian revolution been more ably managed, 
it is not unlikely that it would have caused an earth- 
quake throughout Europe more far-reaching than that 
which radiated from Erance in 1848. Although Rus- 
sia quickly became such an "awful example" that this 
has not happened, her negotiations with Germany have 
nevertheless given us a staggering example of what the 
German Government and the majority of the people 



90 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

are out for and the duplicity lengths which they will 
go to attain it. 

Three dates stand in bold relief in this German 
political calendar of double dealing. The significance 
of these dates should be understood and seared in the 
memory inasmuch as taken together they furnish un- 
assailable proof that the German people and their 
chattering representatives in the Imperial Debating 
Society continue to be children politically. In a so- 
ciety of nations they form a creature of peril with 
the mind of a baby and the body of a brute. 

This metaphor will be clear if we examine the re- 
lation to one another of the dates of July 19 and No- 
vember 29, 1917, and March 4, 1918. The first we 
shall designate Reichstag Peace Resolution Day; the 
second, Reichstag "Spoof Day," and the third, Rus- 
sian Peace Day. 

Reduced to simplest form the Reichstag Peace Res- 
olution simply means that the overwhelming majority 
of the representatives of the German people went on 
record to the world in favour of peace without annex- 
ations. Those who voted thus constitute what is called 
in German political parlance the Reichstag Majority — 
which we must carefully distinguish from the Social 
Democratic Majority. 

Herr Scheidemann, Leader of the Social Demo- 
cratic Majority, said — "The Reichstag with its peace 
programme has invaded the foreign policy of the Em- 
pire and brought about a complete defeat of the an- 
nexationists." 

This sentiment echoed across the North Sea into 
England, and still echoing, crossed the Atlantic to act 
as a soporific on American war activity. Jn England 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 91 

a considerable portion of the Press, in good sporting 
spirit, hailed the advent of the "German people's di- 
rection of their own affairs," while the "Trust Willy" 
Pacifists, both amateur and professional, joyfully 
piped, "I told you so !" 

All through the lead-hued, mudded summer of 1917, 
Britain's soldiers gamely wallowed and bit their way 
slowly into the higher German positions in France and 
Flanders. The combined offensive in which Russia, 
France and Italy would join with them had stagnated 
everywhere else for reasons more politic than military. 

Those who assert that England is saving herself in 
this war as in other wars — and I still find them in 
America in the summer of 1918 — should in that fair- 
ness which is the ideal we should always seek, realise 
and admit that in the extremely critical season of 
1917, the English and the rest of the British Empire 
sustained enormous losses in an attempt to keep the 
war going offensively for the Allies, while America 
was preparing her army. 

Although the military results through the summer 
were as discouraging to the Allies as they had been 
encouraging in 1916, a touching and beautiful hope 
took root and flourished among them that the Reichs- 
tag Peace Resolution was a clear indication that the 
German people, bent under war, would soon enable the 
Allies to draw the fangs of a menacing militarism. 

What was happening in Germany? At the close 
of the summer Hindenburg and Ludendorff began to 
plan and rehearse sledgehammer offensives on the 
Western front for 1918. IsTow that Russia was dwin- 
dling to impotence, they and their military colleagues 
felt that all they needed was an extension of the lease 



92 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

of German unity in order to win. They detested the 
democratic ebullition. They especially wished to 
head off any increase to the adherents of the Indepen- 
dent U-Socialists, the publication of whose peace 
terms, as stated by their leader, Herr Haase, had been 
banned throughout most of Germany including Berlin. 
Even the tamed Socialist Vorwarts, whose presses us- 
ually feed from the official hand, could not reproduce 
the resolution proposed by the Socialist Minority and 
read by Herr Haase, but merely contented itself with 
expressions of regret that a former colleague "has hope- 
lessly run amuck." 

These resolutions (of the Minority, remember) are: 

"The Reichstag strives for a peace without annexa- 
tions of any kind whatever, and without war indemni- 
fication — upon the basis of the right of the people to 
decide their own destinies. In particular it expects the 
restoration of Belgium and the repair of the wrong 
done to Belgium. The Reichstag demands the initia- 
tion of immediate peace negotiations upon the founda- 
tion of this programme. It demands an international 
agreement about general disarmament, freedom of in- 
ternational trade and intercourse, unrestricted inter- 
national freedom of movement, an international agree- 
ment for the protection of workmen from exploitation, 
recognition of the equal rights of a State without regard 
to nationality, sex, race, language, and religion, pro- 
tection of national minorities, and obligatory interna- 
tional arbitration for the settlement of all disputes. 

The urgent preliminary condition for the achievement 
of peace and the carrying out of this peace programme 
is the immediate raising of the state of siege. More- 
over, it is necessary to effect the complete democratisa- 
tion of the Constitution and Administration of the 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 93 

Empire and its several States, and this must end in 
the creation of a social Republic." 

Not only might these resolutions of the 5 per cent, 
contaminate some of the good Germans, but it was 
disconcerting to the military managers of the Ger- 
man Empire while planning their giant offensive that 
the Reichstag was screeching and rocking in its po- 
litical baby-carriage. Therefore, they decided to 
throw it a brightly-coloured ball to play with, although 
down in their hearts they would undoubtedly have pre- 
ferred a bomb. 

On November 2d, Count Hertling, like all his pre- 
decessors, had become Chancellor by the "exclusive 
grace" of the Kaiser. As he was the second Chan- 
cellor to be wished upon the Reichstag within a hun- 
dred days, the so-called Democratic Majority of that 
body, consisting approximately of four-fifths of its 
397 members, "rebelled." It threatened to withhold 
its support from Hertling just as it had refused to 
work with Mark-Time Michaelis unless Hertling gave 
his deputyships in the chancellorship and Prussian 
ministry to "democrats." 

Even Hindenburg went to Berlin to engage in the 
ensuing discussions. With Hertling he listened to the 
"democrats' " demands and although the offices for 
which they clamoured embody no real authority, a pe- 
riod of pretended negotiations ended in the magnani- 
mous granting of "concessions." 

All this was revealed to the world through the me- 
dium of a spectacular farce entitled "Democracy and 
Unity," which was staged for the edification of "dem- 
ocratic" Germany, and the deception of the outside 



94 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

world. An act of boundless generosity on the part 
of Hohenzollern, Hindenburg, Hertling and Company, 
this admitting of the people's representatives in the 
Reichstag to a share in the government! No wonder 
the mere mortals in Germany gave way to emotional 
sentiment of thanksgiving, while the "Trust Willys" 
in England piped the more shrill. 

I do not deny that the idea of a new civilian trium- 
virate looked very well from the distance as a check 
upon rampant militarism. But again I would remind 
the reader: "Prussia never yields; she only seems 
to yield." In addition to the fact that the triumvirate 
exercise power only by grace of the "Kaiser, the records 
of the men who compose it are against them, from the 
democratic point of view. |I have already discussed 
Hertling in this respect in Chapter II. 

Herr von Peyer, vice-Chancellor, is a remarkably 
well-preserved man of 70 years, who devoted his early 
years to a study of theology but switched to law in 
his native Wiirtemburg where he gained considerable 
reputation as a defender of criminals — a kind of ex- 
perience which he should find exceedingly useful in 
his present position defending German policy among 
the nations. Peyer has made numerous Democratic 
speeches, but like most of his Social Democratic breth- 
ren, he has never failed to yield to Imperial Junker- 
dom on a showdown. 

The third member of the triumvirate, Privy Coun- 
cillor Friedburg, is vice-president of the Prussian min- 
istry — (Count Hertling as Chancellor being President 
ex officio). He is 67 years of age, being three years 
younger than Peyer, and was a professor of political 
science at Halle University for a number of years. 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 95 

Like Hertling, he has been an outspoken opponent 
of any parliamentary form of government. 

Tracking down loopholes and flaws in Prussianised 
Germany's diplomatic dealing with her own people 
and foreign countries, I find a most pleasant and use- 
ful diversion. There is a further slight flaw in the 
Friedburg appointment: 

In order to eliminate the last vestige of risk in ad- 
mitting the Reichstag to any power through this "dem- 
ocratic" triumvirate, let it be noted that the rulers 
constitutionally subtracted him from the Reichstag in 
order to elevate him to the Bundesrat, or Federal Coun- 
cil, which, let me again remark, is the check upon the 
Reichstag and is the constitutional instrument ap- 
pointed by the rulers of the several states, the Kaiser 
appointing for dominating Prussia. 

And now for the climax in the colossal farce staged 
and managed by Hindenburg. What was the Reichs- 
tag's end of the bargain for receiving these "conces- 
sions" ? It was nothing less than an agreement by 
the Democratic Majority to muzzle itself until the 
end of the war on all questio7is connected with the 
conduct of the war. 

Furthermore, it was agreed that if the Socialists 
or other parties attempted to go outside the agreed 
programme, they were to be voted down until after 
the war. 

These are the simple facts, and it is difficult for the 
outsider to understand the political credulity of the 
German people. They again congratulated themselves 
on their unity, while Vorwarts, the organ of "tame" 
Socialists, exultantly declared: "Germany has com- 
pleted a revolution of her domestic institutions which 



96 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

puts her on the same level as other peoples. By what 
right can the name of Democracy be denied to Ger- 
many V 

The 29th of November, so little understood, is of 
tremendous importance in the war as a whole. One 
of the reasons it attracted such slight attention was 
that the Cambrai and Italian battles were blocking 
the headings. The events of the 29 th nullified the 
Reichstag Peace Resolution of the 19 th of July of 
no indemnities and no annexations to the extent that 
the people's representatives in the Reichstag, keeping 
to their bargain of "Spoof Day," sat obediently mute 
while the military party in the spring of 1918 framed 
a peace with a Russia which was as helplessly break- 
ing up as an ice-sheet after the winter — a peace which 
includes both indemnities and annexation. 

The third date in the deceptive democracy series is 
March 4th, 1918, when negotiations in the East hav- 
ing been completed to the satisfaction of Germany, 
the Kaiser publicly affixed his seal of approval through 
the medium of a telegram to Hindenburg in which 
he said: 

"With the signing of peace with Russia, almost four 
years of war on the Eastern front have finally reached a 
glorious conclusion. I feel deeply the need to express 
again to you, my dear Field Marshal, and to your faith- 
ful assistant, General Ludendorff, my own thanks and 
the thanks of the German people. By the Battle of Tan- 
nenberg, by the Winter Battle in Masuren, and by the 
battles near Lodz, you laid the foundations for all fur- 
ther successes and made it possible by means of the 
break-through of Gorlice and Tarnow, to force the Rus- 
sian army to retreat and victoriously to hold our ground 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 97 

against all further assaults of the enemy army masses. 
And now the costly prize of victory and the long struggle 
is in our hands. Our Baltic brethren and countrymen 
are liberated from the Russian yoke, and many again 
feel themselves Germans [About 6 per cent — Author]. 
God has been with us and will continue His aid." 

On the same day the Kaiser telegraphed to the 
King of Saxony: 

"You have much gratified me by your congratulatory 
telegram. Like you, I feel the deepest satisfaction and 
gratitude towards God and the Army which has ex- 
torted this peace. The Eastern front now being free, we 
have made an enormous step forward. Firmly trusting 
in the sword, I face the future, which will, and must, 
alter all our heavy sacrifices, bring us victory, and a 
strong peace." 

Although the Reichstag Majority had bound itself 
on "Spoof Day" not to interfere with the conduct of 
the war, which includes the making of peace, it was 
fitting that they should explain their dereliction from 
their pledges of no annexations and no indemnities of 
the 19th of July. They did this cheerfully through 
thinly-veiled contentions of "liberating" Russian prov- 
inces. 

In addition to these apparent excuses, however, they 
contended that conditions had changed since the 19 th 
of July, and that a refusal by Germany's Western 
enemies to make "no annexation and no indemnity 
pledges," rendered the German pledges null and void 
and gave her a free hand in Russia. 

Einally the Reichstag Majority and the Socialist 



98 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Majority sought to cover their abandonment of their 
alleged principles, by introducing wordy resolutions 
in favour "of self-determination" in the territories an- 
nexed by Russia. 

Herr Haase, leader of the 18 Independent U-So- 
cialists, threw interesting light upon the crookedness 
of his confreres when he said in the Reichstag that 
these resolutions were merely a new attempt to con- 
fuse public opinion in clouds of smoke. He added 
that the Reichstag Peace Resolution of July 19 th was 
itself nothing but a smoke-cloud intended to stupefy 
the masses. Continuing, he said: 

"Our feelings are only feelings of shame. Herr 
Scheidemann, Herr Ebert, and Herr David (the So- 
cialist Majority leaders) still go on planting hope on a 
grave. Never has the antagonism to Germany flour- 
ished as it flourishes now. The Reichstag Resolution 
does not contain the smallest grain of democracy. Even 
to Turkey we are surrendering large territories without 
consulting the population, and the cries of the Armen- 
ians for help die away unregarded in Berlin. The 
peace treaty with Einland is a mere sham. The actual 
Government there is in the hands of the Bolshevists, but 
we interfere in the internal affairs of the country — 
against the Bolshevists. In Finland, as elsewhere, we 
are provoking a lasting hatred among the great mass 
of the population. The German Government is sowing 
the wind and will reap the storm." 

It might be cited by those among us who believe 
that the Social Democrats in themselves may some day 
effect peace, that although the Social Democratic Ma- 
jority, unlike the Minority, did not vote against the 
Peace treaties formulated by the Military with Rus- 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 99 

sia and Rouniania, nevertheless did not vote for them. 
This is perfectly true, but it makes the case against 
them all the worse. They are either invertebrates or 
they are deceitfully playing the military game; or, as 
is most probable, they combine the two. In any event, 
they continue to serve the purpose of gulling many 
among us. 

The Socialist member of the Reichstag, Wolfgang- 
Heine, had the courage to protest against his party's 
spineless connivance with Pan-German policy when he 
said: "Full account must some day be taken of those 
who pursue a policy which led to this frightful war. 
The blame lies not alone with the Junkers and those 
like-minded with them, but with the whole German 
people. The Socialists are particularly responsible; 
for they always follow a policy of protest and then 
abstain from opposing with their votes that against 
which they protest." 

From the revolutionary point of view, the Germans 
might be divided into three classes. To the first be- 
long the leaders, the half-deified army officers and pro- 
fessors, and the great men of business. The second 
class contains the bulk of the people. Class three con- 
tains the eighteen more or less revolutionary extrem- 
ists in the Reichstag and a small minority of the pop- 
ulation, certainly not more than one-fifth. 

This last class has already endeavoured to make its 
protests heard and felt, but a police system armed 
with revolver, sword, and machine gun, with espion- 
age and "preventive arrest," has rendered all such at- 
tempts futile. J.t is obvious that there can be no hope 
of a revolution until the third class wins the support 
of the second; but the latter despises the former and 



ioo THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

seeks to curry favour with the first class, from which 
it derives its ready-made ideas. 

In comparing the Russian and the German peoples 
in respect of revolution, certain differences should be 
kept in mind. The Russian people were kept loyal 
through fear; the German people through fear plus 
education, and of these education is by far the more 
potent. In Germany, we find the phenomenon of the 
lowest percentage of illiteracy and the highest percen- 
tage of delusion of any advanced nation. 

Remember that for three generations the Ger- 
man's belief in this institution has been bred in his 
very niarrow. He is grafted to the tree of State at 
the age of five and rarely does he fail to grow more 
firmly into the fibre of the wood with each succeeding 
year. 

The Germans love their country and are ardent stu- 
dents of its history as revealed to them by their pro- 
fessors — men who always write with the hope of 
official approval. That is why their glorious history, 
as they see it, is the history of the house of Hohen- 
zollern — the axis of the German world, the only world 
worth while. Democratic ideas filter but slowly 
through iron frontiers, and while most Germans whine 
at the Allies' blockade of the German stomach, they 
delight in their own government's blockade of the Ger- 
man mind. 

If a neutral arrives in England from Germany, he 
is asked by every one he meets: 

"How are things really over there?" 

Reverse the situation, and the average German 
would not think of seeking information from the trav- 
eller, but would explain the whole situation to him. 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY noi 

People will fight equally hard for their beliefs 
whether those beliefs are right or wrong. So long 
as the Germans' creed centres upon their faith in the 
emperor and the imperial system, the combination of 
blindly obedient human ants, putting all their trust in 
a set of unscrupulously ambitious leaders, will con- 
tinue to be a danger to the society of nations. And 
their faith will not be shaken until the failure of the 
militaristic autocrat is demonstrated by the defeat of 
his armies. 

There can be no hope of genuine political reform 
in Germany until the German people realise and ad- 
mit the absurdity of their present belief that their 
country, after exhausting every possible means of 
keeping the peace, was forced to defend herself against 
a ring of jealous enemies. That delusion is the foun- 
dation-stone upon which the government has reared 
its whole gigantic structure of falsehood. 

One might reasonably suppose that Prince Lich- 
nowsky, German Ambassador to London up to the 
outbreak of war, would have shattered this foundation- 
stone, when he furnished definite proof that Germany, 
not Great Britain, deliberately willed war. One might 
suppose, indeed, that the German people would be im- 
pressed by such points in the revelations as: 

1. "Of course it would only have needed a hint to 
make Count Berchtold (the Austrian Foreign Minister) 
satisfy himself with a diplomatic success and put up 
with the Serbian reply. But this hint was not given. 
On the contrary, we pressed for war. After our re- 
fusal Sir Edward Grey asked us to come forward with a 
proposal of our own, but we insisted upon war. 

2. The urgent appeals and definite declarations of 



102 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Monsieur Sazonoff (Russian Foreign Minister), later 
on the positively humble telegrams of the Czar, the 
repeated proposals of Sir Edward Grey, the warnings 
of the Italian foreign minister and Bollati (Italian 
Ambassador in Berlin), my urgent advice — all were of 
no use; for Berlin went on insisting that Serbia must 
be massacred. 

3. Count Mensdorff (Austrian Ambassador) ac- 
companied us to the train with his staff. He was cheer- 
ful, and gave me to understand that perhaps he would 
remain in London. To the English, however, he said 
that it was not Austria, but we, who had wanted the 
war. 

The special train took us from London to Paris, 
where a guard of honour was drawn up for me. I was 
treated like a departing sovereign. Thus ended my 
London mission. It was wrecked, not by the perfidy of 
the British, but by the perfidy of our policy. 

4. When now, after two years in Germany, I realise 
everything in retrospect, I say to myself that I realised 
too late that there was no place for me in a system 
which for years has lived only on tradition and on 
routine, which tolerates representatives who report only 
what one wants to read. 

Absence of prejudice and independent judgment are 
combatted. Want of ability and of character are ex- 
tolled and esteemed. 

I had to support in London a policy which I knew 
to be fallacious. I was paid out for it, for it was a sin 
against the Holy Ghost. 

5. Our own White Book, owing to its poverty and 
gaps, constitutes a grave self -accusation: 

6. In the days between July 23 and July 30, 1914, 
when M. Sazonoff emphatically declared that Russia 
could not tolerate an attack upon Serbia, we rejected 
the British proposals of mediation, although Serbia, un- 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 103 

der Russian and British pressure, had accepted almost 
the whole ultimatum, and although an agreement about 
the two points in question could easily have been 
reached, and Count Berchtold was even ready to satisfy 
himself with the Serbian reply. 

On July 30, when Count Berchtold wanted to give 
way, we, without Austria having been attacked, replied 
to Russia's mobilisation by sending an ultimatum to 
Petersburg, and on July 31 we declared war on the 
Russians, although the Czar had pledged his word that 
as long as negotiations continued not a man should 
march — so that we deliberately destroyed the possibility 
of a peaceful settlement. 

In view of these indisputable facts, it is not sur- 
prising that the whole civilised world outside Germany 
attributes to us the sole guilt for the world-war. 

7. Is it not intelligible that our enemies declare 
that they will not rest until a system is destroyed which 
constitutes a permanent threatening of our neighbours ? 
Must they not otherwise fear that in a few years they 
will again see their provinces overrun and their towns 
and villages destroyed? Were those people not right 
who declared that it was the spirit of Treitschke and 
Bernhardi which dominated the German people — the 
spirit which glorifies war as an aim in itself and does 
not abhor it as an evil? Were those people not right 
who said that among us it is still the feudal knights and 
Junkers and the caste of warriors who rule and who 
fix our ideals and our values — not the civilian gentle- 
men? Were they not right who said that the love of 
duelling, which inspires our youth at the universities, 
lives on in those who guide the fortunes of the people ? 
Had not the events at Zabern and the Parliamentary 
debates on that case shown foreign countries how civil 
rights and freedoms are valued among us, when ques- 
tions of military power are on the other side ? 



104 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Militarism, really a school for the nation and an in- 
strument of policy, makes policy into the instrument 
of military power, if the patriarchal absolutism of a 
soldier-kingdom renders possible an attitude which 
would not be permitted by a democracy which had dis- 
engaged itself from military Junker influences. 

That is what our enemies think, and that is what 
they are bound to think, when they see that, in spite of 
capitalistic industrialisation, and in spite of Socialistic 
organisation, the living, as Friedrich Nietzsche says, 
are still governed by the dead. The principal war aim 
of our enemies, the democratisation of Germany, will 
be achieved." 

If it is true, as many say, that the German people 
would oppose their government, its deceits and ideas 
of conquests, once the scales dropped from their eyes, 
and overthrow their rulers, why have they not done so 
in the light of the Lichnowsky revelations ? They have 
not for two reasons: 

^n the first place, their "hate" obsession is so great 
that the Government can circulate with considerable 
success stories in the Press tending to show that Prince 
Lichnowsky is afflicted with anglomania and other 
mental trouble, just as they dispose of Doctor Muhlon 
(a former director at Krupp's and later in the employ 
of the German foreign office, whose conscience caused 
him to go to Switzerland, where, in security, he tells 
the truth of German plans for war) by declaring that 
he is suffering from neurasthenia. Denunciation is a 
favourite weapon with the German Government; in- 
deed, the writer has had it directed against him both in 
England and in the United States. The Government 
has been successful to the amazing extent that the Lich- 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 105 

nowsky revelations have been set aside by all Germans 
political parties except the Socialist Minority of 18. 

The second and more important reason, however, is 
that education has made the Germans a thoughtfully- 
economic and practical people. Among all European 
belligerents, thoughts of accumulated war-debt and tax- 
ation growing out of it are appalling. In no country, 
however, to such an extent as in Germany, have I heard 
boastful expressions of hope of indemnities which would 
make tax paying even a lighter burden than before the 
war; or a corresponding depression and whining when, 
in the lights and shades of the struggle, it has some- 
times seemed that these indemnities might not be forth- 
coming. 

When the chances of loot looked especially bright, 
Doctor Helfferich, then Secretary of the Imperial Treas- 
ury, assured the plunder-loving populace by proclaiming, 
"We do not desire to increase by taxation the heavy 
burden which war throws upon our people. Ger- 
many's enemies deserve to drag the leaden weight 
through the centuries to come." 

I have talked earnestly with many Social Demo- 
cratic members of the Reichstag, and almost without 
exception I have found them intensely practical men, 
combining business ability with a deep knowledge of 
economics. 

Although keeping an eye on electoral reform, mem- 
bers of the Social Democratic Majority are solidly 
behind the war-machine. In fact, were I not aware 
of their party affiliations, I should have mistaken some 
of them for dyed-in-the-wool Conservatives. Jn Great 
Britain and America most of them would be Liberals; 
but in Germany, with its social caste of parties, they 



106 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

are forced to become Social Democrats in order to 
gratify their political ambitions. Almost invariably, 
they display the customary weakness of the subjects 
of the Empire of prostrating themselves at the feet of 
the men higher up if these but show them a little 
personal consideration. 

Take Herr Scheidemann, the Social Democratic 
leader, for example. When he returned from Stock- 
holm in the summer of 1917, he expressed as his un- 
shakable conviction the principle that there would be 
no peace until Germany became thoroughly democra- 
tised. Yet he says — after his hopes had again been 
brightened by successes in the East : 

"We must protect ourselves against Russia so long 
as she remains our enemy, but we do not wish the 
work of the revolution to fall to the ground. The 
disorderly retreat condemns the masses of Russian 
soldiers to frightful sufferings, and the Socialist Gov- 
ernment of Russia lays the blame for this tremendous 
misfortune upon another Socialist body, the Maximal- 
ists. Think if such a misfortune were to befall the 
German Army and the Government were able to blame 
for it the Socialist Party in Germany! Here you 
have the key to the understanding of our attitude. If 
anything similar were to happen with us, it would 
mean the downfall of Germany, and at the same time 
the downfall of the German democracy. 

"Our Russian comrades will now perhaps under- 
stand why we did not follow their advice and copy 
their revolution. They will now perhaps realise that 
we did not wish to prepare for the German people 
the fate which the Russian people now have to endure. 
We must reach democracy by other paths, and we are 



SMOKE-CLOUDS OF DEMOCRACY 107 

already upon them. I do not doubt for a moment 
that we shall have equal suffrage in Prussia and the 
Parliamentary system after the war." 

Note, after the war. 

The Social Democrats are practical men who en- 
courage the Russians to talk platitudes and dream 
while they look realities in the face. I have heard 
some of them talk of the Russian as a good-natured, 
simple fellow who would benefit by the German de- 
velopment of his land. 

They would oppose paying indemnities as vigorously 
as the rest of the Germans. Even such an extreme 
member of the Minority as the hater of militarism 
who suggested that I should go to Potsdam to see the 
return from the Somme of the battered Prussian 
Guard, gave me the following views: 

"We wish to be just to our enemies, and we do 
not wish any of their territory. But we must safe- 
guard the future of Germany. In all wars through- 
out history the winner has recouped financially either 
through direct indemnity or through commercial ex- 
pansion as a result of the war. I believe that neither 
side should pay the other in this war, with the single 
exception that we should recompense Belgium. 

"A drawn war, so far as the west is concerned, 
means a great burden on all the belligerents for many 
years. The country whose people will make the 
greatest sacrifices to throw off this burden as soon as 
possible will be triumphant in the peaceful conquests 
of the markets of the world. Our people are more 
loyal to the idea of the State and will bear more pa- 
tiently such sacrifices than the individualistic Eng- 



108 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

lish, to whom a drawn war will mean a long and 
disastrous period of unrest. 

"We are certain of the industrial control of the 
Near East. We should not interfere with the politi- 
cal independence of the Near Eastern countries, but we 
recognise that it is to their advantage as well as our 
own that they be directed by a strong policy which 
will enable German science to develop this region so 
richly endowed by nature." 

In short, though some Social Democrats have ex- 
pressed to me deep regret that their Government has 
got Germany into such a mess — or could not keep 
Germany out of such a mess, as they prefer to put it 
— they are not going to make matters worse by forcing 
internal dissensions to a point which would jeopardise 
their own and their country's prosperity. Jn other 
words, though they want democracy, they do not want 
it at the expense of their financial welfare. 



CHAPTER V 



THE WILSON WEDGE 



Aim now," I asked at length, "why, in your hon- 
est opinion, did America come into the war?" 

I put this question to a group of Hungarian pris- 
oners in early January, 1918, who formed part of the 
fourteen hundred taken by the French on Monte Tom- 
ba a few days before. We were in a great square 
courtyard in the old Italian city of Castlefranco. 
From the grey and white mountain mass to the north 
came the rolling of the guns, while just outside squads 
of Italian soldiers were taking bodies from a mass of 
wreckage that had been a hospital full of wounded the 
night before, but was now a blood-soaked shambles 
of the dead. 

The raiders who flew down from the North had done 
their work. 

I determined, however, to show no rancour while 
among the prisoners. I was making definite investi- 
gations with the consent of the French Commandant. 
This is a war of opinions, and it will never really end 
until our enemies change some of theirs. That is 
why, after I had broken the ice with a chat about my 
visits to their country, I asked the all-important ques- 
tion. They hung back, however, and avoided a direct 
reply, presumably either because they wished to avoid 
hurting my feelings or arousing resentment in me. 

109 



no THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

At length, after reassuring them by promising that if 
they would give me their frank opinion I should with 
equal frankness give our side of the story if they 
wished, I again asked — "Why did America declare 
war ?" 

"For financial reasons, if I may say so," the most au- 
dacious replied, hesitatingly and with extreme polite- 
ness. 

I took this pleasantly, and encouraged them to con- 
tinue. 

"The financial alliance with England caused Amer- 
ica's entrance," a second elaborated to the approving 
nods of the rest. 

"But have you not read President Wilson's 
speeches?" I asked. 

Evidently they had not, to judge by their puzzled 
expressions. 

After considerable questioning, I found that some 
of them had read extracts with which, however, they 
were not greatly impressed; though it is important to 
note that their own Press comments on our President 
and his utterances, had become clearly engraved on 
their minds. 

"But President Wilson sought to make it clear when 
we entered the war that we did so for no material 
gain," I exclaimed. "He said: 'We have no selfish 
ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. 
We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material 
compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. 
We are but one of the champions of the rights of man- 
kind.' " 

I found my listeners looking at one another, 
knowingly. When I sought an explanation, however, 



THE WILSON WEDGE m 

they again became reticent. To get them to talk 
freely about President Wilson was most difficult of 
all, due no doubt to an analogy in their minds of the 
case reversed with the sacrilege of an American pris- 
oner expressing a not nattering opinion about the 
Hapsburg ruler. I reminded them that the President 
of the United States was elected by the people because 
they considered him the best man to be their leader for 
four years, and that there was not the least likelihood 
of him casting into prison a fellow citizen who listened 
dispassionately to an honest expression of opinion of 
the enemy. 

Whereupon they delicately assured me that state- 
ments such as those just quoted by me were pure 
hypocrisy. I was not surprised, inasmuch as I had 
long since discovered that this idea was the officially- 
bottled milk upon which the political children of the 
Central Empires have been nourished. 

They then agreed in amplifying this charge by say- 
ing that the President is a politician under the influ- 
ence of the plutocrats who are the real rulers of Amer- 
ica, these in turn being influenced in international 
matters by the moneyed classes of England. 

This, then, is the extent to which our talk of mak- 
ing the world safe for democracy had permeated the 
minds of these Hungarians. I found the same stock 
idea on why we are in the war among German pris- 
oners in 1918, and without variation I found it domi- 
nating the minds of the extremists among the Sinn 
Feiners when I tramped through the mountain villages 
of Kerry, or up the Shannon bank to Claire. Across the 
Atlantic, I find it among men of ambiguous citizen- 
ship in our own United States. Like a spider's web 



112 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

this idea runs over the world from the Wilhelmstrasse 
to bind the faithful and the dupes. 

Once we became a belligerent, the German Govern- 
ment, ever alert to the prime importance of maintain- 
ing unity, recognised fully the danger of the wedge 
which the American President was seeking to drive 
between the German Government and the German peo- 
ple. The authorities, in consequence, took prompt 
measures to blunt this wedge through the proper "ed- 
ucation" of the people. 

When the Wilhelmstrasse received President Wil- 
son's entry into war speech of April 2, 1917, it promptly 
mobilised the Press for the great campaign of enlighten- 
ment. Only about two-thirds of the speech was consid- 
ered safe for the German people, and much of this was 
carefully packed so that it would not go off when han- 
dled. The declarations that we are not making war 
on the German people, that Germany's war is autoc- 
racy-made, and that it has become a war on civilisa- 
tion, humanity and all nations, were reproduced with 
fair accuracy. 

On the other hand, the charges that the Imperial 
Government filled American communities and govern- 
ment offices with spies, even before the war began, has 
set "criminal intrigues everywhere afoot against our 
national unity of counsel, our peace within and with- 
out, our industries and our commerce," and that these 
"intrigues have been carried on at the instigation, 
with the support, and even under the personal direc- 
tions of official agents of the Imperial Government ac- 
credited to the Government of the United States" — 
all these were suppressed. This particular suppres- 
sion was necessary in order that the German leaders 



THE WILSON WEDGE 113 

might consistently represent to their people that their 
efforts were always peaceful, that they had sought to 
avoid war, and that it is their enemies, not they, who 
insist that it shall be uselessly prolonged. 

The German version eliminates also the President's 
assertion that, "We are now about to accept gauge of 
battle with this natural foe to liberty." 

In the same papers with the government-edited ac- 
count of the speech, the government-inspired campaign 
of hate against the President and his countrymen was 
formally launched. This was not a new campaign by 
any means ; it was merely a redoubled one. 

The LoJcal-Anzeiger struck the keynote by denounc- 
ing President Wilson as an "Anglo-Saxon fanatic," 
"a deliberate liar," and a "sanctimonious hypocrite." 
The gentle reader was then reminded of some of the 
names the American editors and clergymen have called 
the Germans during the war — "mad dogs," "barbar- 
ians," "scientifically-trained wild beasts," "a horde of 
murderers," "Huns," "pirates" — and says that "the 
unmeasured hostility that such expressions denote was 
systematically propagated and inflamed by President 
Wilson, who does not hate the German Government 
but the German race." 

The article, of course, concluded with a threat. Not 
to have done so would have involved a serious Prus- 
sian omission. "Let America know that Wilson's as- 
surance that this war is not against the German people, 
but against the German Government, cannot lessen the 
fury which his conduct throughout the world-war has 
stirred up, and which his last message has fanned into 
flaming fire. For his assurance is untrue and dishon- 
ourable, just as his whole message is from first to last. 



;• 



ii 4 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Mr. Wilson knows perfectly well that there has never 
been a war in history which has been so little a dynastic 
war or so much the war of a whole nation battling for 
its existence as the war into which hate and envy forced 
Germany to defend herself against a league which now 
embraces both hemispheres." (Note the thread-worn 
phonograph record in the last sentence.) 

Month after month the German Press played in this 
key, it being required every day to denounce President 
Wilson's "interference" with Germany. Even the 
Frankfort Gazette, Germany's leading financial organ 
and a journal so moderate that it is usually in hot 
water with the military, declared in September, 1917 : 

"The German people will make its State institutions 
in accordance with the high level of its political, moral, 
and intellectual strength, and according to its needs — 
not as seems good to the patronising narrowness of 
Herr Wilson and Herr Lansing. These changes in 
our constitutional life cannot have anything whatever 
to do with the peace. (Observe that even the Frank- 
fort Gazette fails to grasp what we are fighting for.) 
Peace will come when our enemies have accustomed 
themselves to the thought that no conditions can be 
dictated to us, but that they must come to an agree- 
ment with us about the conditions of the common life 
of the peoples. After all that has happened in the 
past three years in West and East and at sea, it is a 
disastrous mistake to go on talking to us as if we were 
compelled to accept peace as a gift." 

The Cologne-Gazette, always rabidly anti-American 
as well as anti-British, has made an interesting collec- 
tion of the denunciations of Mr. Wilson's note, which 
have appeared in the newspapers of the German So- 



THE WILSON WEDGE 115 

cialist Majority. These are correctly described as "vig- 
orous." Indeed, the Socialist Hamburg Echo says: 
"The German people do not care a damn for Wilson." 
The reader should never underestimate the impor- 
tance of the newspaper as a moulder of public opin- 
ion in Germany. Since the majority of the people have 
embraced State-worship as their politico-religious 
creed, the officially-inspired newspaper has a place in 
the modern German home akin to that formerly held 
by the Bible. The German Government, however, 
does not stop with the newspaper, but ha3 mobilised 
the professors, pastors, and actors against the Wilson 
wedge.* In its battle against Wilsonian utterances, it 
even went to the extent, after the reply to the Pope's 
Peace note in September, 1917, of mobilising the 
mayors and Town Councils throughout Germany to 
pass resolutions against Mr. Wilson. These were 
placarded upon the official bulletin-boards which form 
parts of the regulation scenic requirements of every 
German town. The one posted in Potsdam will give 
an idea of the soothing diction which can be inspired 
from above: 

"Filled with contempt, our citizens turn aside from 
the shameless hypocrite who seeks to hide behind high- 
toned idealism his anxiety about the blood-money which 
he has advanced to his English colleague in ideas and 
in business, and who in his blindness dares to suggest 
to the German people that it should come to the help 
of its impotent enemies by cutting itself to pieces. 

"The crafty hypocrite Wilson, who, with the simple 
impudence of an uneducated parvenu, has the insolence 
to interfere in our domestic affairs, may be assured that 

* For position of these in the system, see "The Land of Deep- 
ening Shadow"— Chapters III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and XI. 



n6 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

none but fools will believe that our pitiless enemies are 
giving us good advice when they try to embitter our 
domestic unity. The more they abuse our Kaiser and 
our Government, the more highly will our people ap- 
preciate the full value of Kaiser and Government, which 
nothing could replace. Standing firmly and loyally to- 
gether, Kaiser and people will force the peace which we 
need. The German people, whose deep-based education 
in all spheres has led the van of human civilisation for 
centuries — long before the United States of North 
America existed — and whose moral strength and tech- 
nical ability are surpassed by no other people, can, if it 
were really necessary, starve and die, but can never 
bow the neck before a victorious enemy. Let Herr 
Wilson take note of that !" 

Apparently the German Government believed that 
it had satisfactorily deflected the Wilson wedge which 
it referred to as a "maliciously and hopelessly igno- 
rant attempt to separate the people from their beloved 
rulers." For it actually seized upon the President's 
differentiation as its star war loan advertisement. 

The following is a translation of this advertisement : 

THE ANSWER TO WILSON 

At last the United States has openly stepped to the 
side of England, whose cause it has secretly supported 
since the beginning of the war. Unrestricted U-boat 
war is taken as a pretext. In the course of his plans, 
Wilson even employs the oft-tried but unsuccessful at- 
tempt to erect a barrier between the German people 
and the German Government. How little does Wilson 
know the German people and German nature! 

Never in the history of the German Empire has a 
decision of the government been so unanimously longed 



THE WILSON WEDGE 117 

for and acclaimed by the whole people as the freeing of 
our U-boats from every fetter in the war against Eng- 
land — the accursed instigator and criminal prolonger 
of this terrible war. 

The war loan offers the opportunity to show Wilson 
what the German people really think of the U-boat ques- 
tion. No one is entitled to stand aloof from this duty of 
honour. There is still time. Subscribe as much as you 
can, and if you have already subscribed, raise your 
subscription as much as your means will permit ! That 
is 

THE TEUE ANSWER TO WILSON 

Although the German Government has from the first 
made no pretence of hushing up the President's dif- 
ferentiation between it and the people, it has grown 
increasingly strict in keeping from its subjects Presi- 
dent Wilson's definite statements concerning our war 
aims and determination. This strictness is indeed ap- 
plied to all Allied utterances at present. The method 
is simple and consists of two parts : 

First. Only a summary of the speech, not its actual 
wording, is allowed in the newspapers. In this way, 
statements showing Allied right, Pan-German lust of 
conquest and the like, can be obscured. 

Second. With the summary, every German news- 
paper is required to publish an appended note of ex- 
planation. This note completes the distortion of the 
issues. 

An example of this effective method is the German 
Government's handling of the President's first war- 
anniversary speech at Baltimore April 6, 1918 — the 
speech in which he drew a lesson for the whole world 
from German duplicity in dealing with Russia and an- 



n8 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

nounced that we should use "force, force to the utmost, 
force without stint or limit." After failing to learn in 
the safe-to-read summary the specific charges against 
the Imperial Government, the German reader is enabled 
to acquire a fresh flush of hate in the perusal of the 
appended note in his newspaper-bible : 

"This speech turns history upside down. The whole 
world knows that the tremendous battle which is now 
being fought out in the West is the consequence of the 
war will of the Entente. Germany had given an unmis- 
takable declaration of her readiness to enter into nego- 
tiations. The Entente willed otherwise. If Wilson had 
been honestly concerned about peace and the avoidance 
of further bloodshed, he ought to have used his influence 
accordingly with his allies. Instead of that he did 
nothing to prevent the Versailles resolutions. His old 
tirades about right and justice have been contradicted 
afresh by the proceedings against Holland. There is 
still a yawning gulf between his words and his deeds. 
JSTow he appeals openly to the utmost force. Thus he 
at last declares clearly what the policy of America and 
her allies means — force against everything which is in 
their way in the world. Germany will not submit to the 
yoke of force. That is why she is fighting her heroic 
war. Wilson's speech is the best propaganda for our 
war loan, for it shows what a lost war would mean to 
Germany." 

A few weeks before the extremely important Balti- 
more speech, I grew greatly interested one evening in 
Paris, in the discussion for and against the President's 
policy of insisting upon a distinction between the Ger- 
man people and their Government in this war. On 
this particular evening, there was no dispute as to the 



THE WILSON WEDGE 119 

guilt or innocence of the German people. Every one 
was quite in agreement with the Socialistic member 
of the Reichstag, Wolfgang Heine, who said: 

"The blame lies not alone with the Junkers and 
those like-minded with them, but with the whole Ger- 
man people." 

The whole question concerned the amount of suc- 
cess that the Wilson wedge had thus far achieved in 
Germany. Among those present was an American 
who had come out of Germany into Switzerland a 
short time before and was now on his way home after 
the very difficult transit permission from the French 
had been obtained. His general outlook was similar 
to that of some of the other Americans who "stayed 
over" in Germany because they had so endeared them- 
selves to the Wilhelmstrasse that they were at a loss 
to understand why such a trifle as a war between the 
United States and Germany should interrupt the 
pleasant, personally-conducted pursuit of their profes- 
sion. 

"President Wilson's distinction between the people 
in Germany and their Government, is a mistaken pol- 
icy," said the man out of Germany. "I have seen it 
first-hand make the people more loyal to their rulers." 

Before explaining why in the long run I take the 
opposite view, let us turn for a moment to the curious 
explanation of this policy offered by the one daily 
paper of the German Empire which has consistently 
fought for such alterations in the German constitution 
as would eliminate secret diplomacy and make Ger- 
many a civil, and not a military, state. This paper 
is the Berliner Tageblatt! At the conclusion of its 



r i20 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

hard-fought campaign, through the summer of 1917, 
and into early 1918 for democratic reform it said: 

"The people of all countries resent foreign inter- 
ference with their domestic affairs. President Wil- 
son understands this, and he knew perfectly well what 
he was doing when he demanded parliamentary gov- 
ernment of Germany. He knew that the majority 
of Germans in favour of reform would be so resentful 
that they would prefer to stand by the reactionary 
Junker-annexationists than make a common cause with 
an outsider. That was exactly what he wished to do 
inasmuch as the admittance in Germany of the whole 
people into the management of their foreign affairs, 
would be a fatal blow to him and the other leaders 
of the Allies; for it would wrench the weapons of ag- 
itation from their hands — their phrase-weapons — that 
this is a struggle against militarism, a conflict with 
absolutism." 

In its zeal for constitutional reform (which, al- 
ways remember, is distinct from a desire for peace 
that would be acceptable to the Allies) the Tageblatt, 
probably unintentionally, draws a wrong deduction 
from President Wilson's policy, as we understand it, 
— a deduction, however, which corroborates the evi- 
dence that the German Government, through its con- 
tinuing ability to pervert the minds of its subjects, 
has turned into cement that which was intended as 
a wedge. That is, it has succeeded in doing it for 
something more than the first year of the war with 
the United States. 

The comforting fact is, however, that Germany has 
been seething internally like a volcano since early in 
1916, and is going to seethe until the fires of the Allies 



THE WILSON WEDGE 121 

cause her to erupt some day — or she puts those fires 
out. 

The democratic tendencies, boiling up from time to 
time, have filled the disciples of Pan-Germanism, 
Kaiserism, and the kindred evils, that we are fighting 
with so much alarm that they are banding themselves 
together to nip German Democracy in the bud. For, 
if the leaders see no likelihood of a popular upheaval 
why did they insist at Brest-Litovsk that the Russians 
must conduct no propaganda in the occupied prov- 
inces? And why do they go to such extremes in the\ 
way of reprisals as to compel the British to discon- 
tinue the practice of dropping propaganda from air- 
planes? 

The Kaiser's temporising talk always causes appre- 
hension in the Junkers, who believe in the delightfully 
simple policy of never yielding an inch at home or 
abroad. That is why the Crown Prince is more pop- 
ular with them than is his father. They are the real 
rulers of Prussia, and their motto is still: 

"Unser Koenig absolut 
Wenn er unsern Willen tut." 
(Our King is absolute if he does our will.) 

Personally, I do not believe that the Kaiser intends 
to give any real, lasting power of self-government to 
his subjects. Although he ejected Bismarck he has 
not ejected his method of promise and withdrawal. 
In defending his acceptance of German universal suf- 
frage in 1866 for the North German Bund Bismarck 
explained the whole process of making sham domestic 
concessions in time of war, and paying temporary 
"blackmail" to the "liberty-mongers" in the confident 
belief that after the immediate object — victory — had 



122 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

been gained the "damage" done by the concessions 
can be repaired. 

I present Bismarck's own words, which I quote be- 
low as further evidence of my contention in Chapter 
II that — "Prussia does not yield, she only seems to 
yield." We should keep these reminiscences of Bis- 
marck's in mind until we are done with Prussianism, 
that we may not be further duped. 

"I determined to regulate the movements of our 
home policy in accordance with the question whether it 
would support or injure the impression abroad of our 
power and coherence. 

"I argued to myself that our first great aim must be 
independence and security in our foreign relations; 
that to this end not only was actual removal of internal 
dissensions requisite, but also any appearance of such a 
thing must be avoided in the sight of the foreign Pow- 
ers and of Germany. If we first gained independence 
of foreign influence, we should then be able to move 
freely in our internal development, and to organise our 
institutions in as liberal or reactionary a manner as 
should seem right and fitting. If possible I felt that 
we should adjourn all domestic questions until we had 
secured our national aims abroad. 

"Until that should be accomplished I was ready, if 
necessary, to pay blackmail to the Opposition, in order 
to be in a position in the first place to throw into the 
scale our full power, and diplomatically to use the ap- 
pearance of this united power and, in case of need, even 
to have the possibility of letting loose national revolu- 
tionary movements against our enemies. 

"Looking to the necessity, in a fight against an over- 
whelming foreign Power, of being able, in extreme need, 
to use even revolutionary means, I had had no hesita- 
tion whatever in throwing into the frying-pan the most 



THE WILSON WEDGE 123 

powerful ingredient known at that time to liberty- 
mongers, namely, universal suffrage, so as to frighten off 
foreign monarchies from trying to stick a finger into our 
national omelette. I never doubted that the German 
people would be strong and clever enough to free them- 
selves from the suffrage as soon as they realised that it 
was a harmful institution. 

"The acceptance of universal suffrage was a weapon 
in the war against Austria and other foreign countries, 
in the war for German unity, as well as a threat to use 
the last weapon in a struggle against coalitions. In a 
war of this sort, when it becomes a matter of life and 
death, one does not look at the weapons that one seizes 
nor the value of what one destroys in using them; 
one is guided at the moment by no other thought than 
the issue of the war, and the preservation of one's 
external independence. The settling of affairs and 
reparation of the damage have to take place after the 
peace." 

But the stubborn Junker is opposed to every ves- 
tige of even apparent or temporary yielding to de- 
mocracy, consequently a group of the most powerful 
have formed a clique which they call the "League of 
the Emperor's Faithful." This is an organisation 
formed to supplement the Tirpitz Fatherland party 
and support its agitation for the suppression of sen- 
timent in favour of Parliamentary government. One 
of the "Faithful" is a former Junker member of the 
Reichstag, Herr von Oldenburg- J anuschau, who immor- 
talised himself a few years before the war by declar- 
ing that the Kaiser should always be in a position "to 
send a lieutenant and ten men to close up the damned 
Reichstag;." 



124 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Jn a remarkable petition to William II the League 
concludes with vigour: 

"Parliamentary government ? Bah ! The old Fred- 
erick, called the Great even by his enemies, would turn 
in his grave if he knew of the shame we are now going 
through. Why is the Crown looking on in silence? 
Why does it tolerate these things ? Why does it pro- 
mote them ? There is but one explanation. It must 
be feared that the throne is tottering. It can only be 
the half-admitted, half -concealed threats of the Socialist 
leaders to start a revolution that have induced the man 
who was once the most convinced advocate of the Divine 
Right of Kings to lend a helping hand to the democrati- 
sation of his Empire. May God give him, who is en- 
dowed so richly with talent in other directions, the in- 
destructible calm and firmness of a William I. 

"An Emperor William II, who in a spirit of weak 
submission continues to promote the democratisation of 
Germany would be an unintelligible stranger to us. To 
an Emperor William II who with firm hand tears into 
shreds the artificially woven veil of democratic fog; 
who sends to the devil all those who would blackmail 
the throne out of its rights; who scatters to the four 
winds all those who seek to obstruct the destined de- 
velopment of Prussia and Germany — to such a Kaiser 
the German nation, barring a few unpatriotic rowdies* 
and their heedless followers, would look up joyfully, 
accord him their love, honour, and affection, and 
breathe freely again in the consciousness that all is 
well with our glorious Fatherland. German Kaiser, you 
have the choice!" 

To help along the campaign, the Kreutz Zeitung 
(Gazette of the Cross), the chief organ of the Military 
in Prussia, quickly collected by subscription a million 



THE WILSON WEDGE 125 

dollars to be used immediately in the fight against 
democratic tendencies in Germany. 

Most important of all, however, is the campaign 
of the Krupp Press. Not only will the Great In- 
dustrialists of Rhineland cast guns to blast those who 
oppose their will, but they will forge printed words 
into the even more deadly weapons of manacles of the 
mind. 

The Krupp methods fall into three groups: 

1. To own newspapers directly. 

2. To control great numbers of newspapers and 
magazines through heavy advertising subsidies. 

3. To stamp out newspapers which advocate democ- 
racy, and a peace with no annexations in the West. 

I would remind the reader that the Krupps and 
other great manufacturers of war material have piled 
up mountainous fortunes during the war. For a long 
time they successfully fought the imposition of an ex- 
cess war-profits tax. In February, 1918, I learned 
through exceedingly reliable Swedish sources that the 
Krupps were launching one of the most ambitious 
schemes of unsavoury big business methods in the his- 
tory of the extermination of competition. 

Newspapers, as everybody knows, are made from 
wood-pulp. Therefore, what could be simpler than 
planning to control the wood-pulp supply of Europe 
in order to force such radicals as the Berliner Tage- 
tlatt to the wall? They couldn't get it from the 
United States and Canada during the war, and the 
tariff barrier could keep it out after the war. Hence 
the activity of Krupp agents in Germany, Austria- 
Hungary, Scandinavia and Russia to buy up the wood- 
pulp manufacture. In this, to be sure, they are killing 



126 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

two birds with one stone, since this commodity has sup- 
planted cotton in their manufacture of propulsive am- 
munition. 

It strikes me as a significant coincidence that within 
a month after my discovery of the octopus wood-pulp 
project Theodor Wolff, the editor of the Berliner Tage- 
blattj attacked the Krupp Press for its ambitious 
schemes for the annexation of the whole German Press 
— and consequently whole German public opinion. 

Though Herr Wolff does not mention wood-pulp, 
he gives interesting details of the founding at Essen 
of an "advertisement company" which is known as the 
"Ala." This company, composed of a number of the 
most prominent German Industrialists, has now trans- 
ferred its headquarters to Berlin, where it will be con- 
trolled by Herr Hugenberg, a prominent director of 
Krupp's. It is admitted that the business of the 
"Ala" is to supply advertisements to all sorts of news- 
papers and periodicals which undertake to promote 
the Pan-German policy. With it the Industrialists 
have founded what they call a "German Archive" — 
an institution which is to watch the German and for- 
eign press, and to collect and arrange information 
about all newspapers for the guidance of the "Ala." 
This "Archive" is merely a drawing-room name for 
a detective agency, and the "Ala" itself is, as Herr 
Wolff says, "to all intents and purposes a corruption 
and bribery organisation." 

Wolff shows that the same clique, with a lesser or- 
ganisation, conducted the industrial-enlightenment cam- 
paign, which organised the political campaign about 
Morocco, the campaign that threatened to plunge 
Europe into war in 1911. 



THE WILSON WEDGE 127 

The Krupps and their colleagues are now seeking to 
fill every German with the spirit to hold out and bear 
any sacrifice in order to achieve the annexation which 
will give them commercial supremacy and lessen their 
taxes. They are organising careful press campaigns 
about every conceivable annexation of territory and 
assertion of German power. In addition to their rap- 
idly increasing control of newspapers they are flood- 
ing the country with pamphlets and handbills, some 
of which are learned and scientific, while others, cir- 
culated "confidentially," contain all sorts of vague and 
unfounded statements devised to excite uninformed 
and "patriotic" opinion. These campaigns, needless 
to say, are conducted at utter variance with the policy 
which the Government professes in public lullaby- 
speeches. 

Concurrently, the Krupps conduct a steady cam- 
paign against democracy. They know democracy 
would mean that they could exploit the toil of their 
workers to less degree. They know that democracy 
might demand an eight-hour working-day as in Amer- 
ica rather than the twelve and thirteen-hour working- 
day which, in part, has enabled them to "dump" their 
goods into other countries to force foreign competitors 
to the wall. 

To be sure the German working-men are blessed with 
good sanitary conditions for the most part, but on the 
other hand, they know nothing of that surplus of 
energy which I find in American factories where men 
throw a ball around during lunch hour, or play games 
after the work of the day is done. The toiling German 
is more prone to take his recreation in a sitting pos- 
ture in close proximity to a stein of beer. The Krupps 



128 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

know too that democracy tends to eliminate secret 
plunder agreements between nations, tends toward peace 
rather than war. Under democracy they would lose 
control of the reins of power in Germany and the pos- 
sibility of control of the reins of power of the greater 
part of the globe. So they will have none of democ- 
racy. It means their life. They will fight it to the 
death. Hence it is fitting that in their new and great- 
est campaign they start off with the following para- 
graph throughout their Press: 

"The most dangerous enemy of the German people 
is Democracy. It is Democracy that we shall have to 
fight when our arms have long been at rest and the far- 
advanced frontiers of the new and greater Germany 
have been secured — in spite of July 19 and its Reichs- 
tag majority — in a German security-peace." 

From which, one may gather, the German reader may 
joyfully infer that when Britain, France, Italy and 
America have been defeated, the war will begin again 
with cheers in the name of the German people against 
the German people themselves. 

The "Anti-Democratic Catechism" circulated by the 
million among German and Austro-Hungarian troops 
is one of the Krupp pamphlets in the world's great ink- 
battle for the control — or in our case, the liberation — 
of the minds of the German people. A few extracts 
will show the calibre of Essen's mental-projectiles : 

1. There is nothing more intolerable than Democracy. 

2. In democratic countries money plays the chief 
role. 

3. Some of our Socialists strive to enforce a peace 
of renunciation by provoking strikes and street demon- 



THE WILSON WEDGE 129 

strations. To-day any one who does not do his utmost 
to nip the democratic international movement in the bud, 
is working for the enemy. He is not working for true 
freedom and equality but for the interests of a gang 
of international rascals. 

4. France's revolution formula — liberty, equality, 
fraternity — should read: insubordination, dishonour, 
hate. 

5. America is the land of corruption and bribery — 
a thing wholly unknown among us Germans. 

6. In the East wide areas now in our hands provide 
us with the necessary colonisation areas for German 
peasants. We must hold these, and in the West we 
must hold the important coal and iron regions which 
we occupy and which we gained with so much good 
German blood. Above all, we must hold the coast of 
Flanders." 

Another leaflet, explaining German military suc- 
cesses in a light calculated to undermine faith in de- 
mocracy in the minds of a militarily-nurtured populace, 
will enable the German soldier in his spare time in 
barracks, billets and trenches to understand the dif- 
ferences between Kaiser armies and Parliamentary 
armies. Indeed, the deductions drawn in this extraor- 
dinarily interesting circular should prove as interest- 
ing to us as to the Germans. 

"1. One of the fundamental characteristics of the 
world-war is what is formulated as the opposition be- 
tween Parliament Army and Kaiser Army. The Ger- 
man Empire and the Monarchies that are allied with it 
can to-day be confident that their Kaiser Armies will 
hold the field against the Parliament Armies of Eng- 
land, France, Italy and America. 



130 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

"The antagonism between the military authority, 
which demands the domination that is absolutely neces- 
sary for the control of armies, and a Parliament which 
is jealous of its right of control threatens to interfere 
with and to weaken the unity of power and of leadership 
in war. On the other hand, such dangers are out of 
the question when the civil and military authority are 
absolutely united in the personality of a Monarch who 
is protected from Parliamentary interference by the 
autocracy which is guaranteed to him by the Consti- 
tution. 

"We can only welcome the fact that now, immediately 
before the final decisions of the war, Russia is imperilled 
because the war-power, which hitherto was subject en- 
tirely to the absolute authority of the Czar, is put under 
the Duma and the Revolutionary parties. The neces- 
sary unity in the organism of the whole military forces 
is most securely guaranteed by the sovereign will of 
a Monarch — in Germany by an Emperor who is in- 
dependent of the will of Parliament. Thirty years ago 
Bismarck powerfully resisted a Reichstag majority 
when it attempted, in Bismarck's words, 'to turn the 
Imperial Army into a Parliamentary Army.' 

"It is to be hoped that Bismarck's successors will at all 
times see as effectively as he did to the defeat of all 
attempts by a Parliamentary democracy to diminish the 
perfect power of the Emperor and War Lord. 

"2. Order and unity, guaranteed by a firmly an- 
chored Monarchy, which has not yet been democratised, 
and which by strength cf will masters all antagonisms, 
are two of the chief foundations and main sources of 
military and economic strength in war. That belligerent 
who has these two things always at his disposal retains 
a secure superiority over enemies among whom these 
things are threatened. 

"In the midst of a war which has already lasted a long 



THE WILSON WEDGE 131 

time and presses hard upon the broad masses of the peo- 
ple — and especially when the war is reaching the final 
decisions — the lack of an indisputably secured Govern- 
ment must have a checking and paralysing effect upon 
the war-will in face of the dangers which threaten 
from starving and excited mobs. Warlike efficiency 
cannot be associated with lack of order and lack of 
unity. The revolutionary events in Russia give a pic- 
ture of the lengths to which democratic tendencies can 
go — tendencies which, according to their admirers in 
Germany, must not be resisted by any firm dam. But 
waves can be broken — even democratic waves, irresisti- 
ble though they pretend to be. Where the will is lack- 
ing for this, even the most powerful Monarchy must 
gradually be undermined. The safety of the German 
future will continue to depend not least upon such a 
Monarchy as the strong-willed centre of order and 
unity." 

This militaristic and anti-democratic flood of prop- 
aganda has the greatest effect among the German troops 
in that it is accompanied by supporting currents from 
some Social Democratic leaders who are happy to do 
the Government's bidding for the right to wear a bit 
of ribbon or the comfort of a Government job. The 
Social Democratic Army Post, for example, is a well- 
edited magazine published in Berlin, which circulates 
freely through the Kaiser's armies. ,It purports to be 
a purely Socialist organ, issued twice a month from 
the headquarters of the Socialist Majority. 

The point is that it is promoted and subsidised by 
the German Foreign Office in a manner similar to 
the Continental Times, the organ which fooled so many 
gullible American visitors to the Fatherland. 

The Field Post practices a studied moderation 



132 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

which is very effective. Its leading themes are the Ger- 
man Government's deep love of peace (let the reader 
remember that this is a Socialistic organ for Socialistic 
readers at the close of the fourth year of the war), the 
patriotic sincerity of the Socialist Majority and the 
abomination of the Independent Socialists, the unrea- 
sonableness of the enemy and the steady progress of 
the "peace offensive" — i.e., the onward march of the 
Invisible Army. 

How such work marches hand in hand with that of 
the Krupps and the Militarists in blocking the Wilson 
wedge, may be seen from a few typical quotations : 

"1. The hope of a general peace is at present not very 
great. It looks as if the French and English absolutely 
desire a decision in the West with American help (writ- 
ten on the eve of the great German offensive, February, 
1918). Unless these untaught people make an end of 
their present governments, they will hardly get peace. 

"2. We Germans desire nothing more than we desire 
an early peace, but we decidedly refuse to submit to 
Wilson, to be starved by England, or to commit suicide 
on the advice of Russian revolutionists. Terrible though 
every hour is which separates us from peace, we must 
inform our enemies that, although we Germans have al- 
ways required a little domestic quarrelling, we still 
present an absolutely united front to the enemy without. 

"3. If we were in the first year of war, it might per- 
haps be said that Germany ought to set the good example, 
and that the others would follow. But who can still 
seriously believe that Wilson, Lloyd George, and Cle- 
menceau would follow. Of course, if it must be, we 
shall negotiate even with these 'statesmen.' But let 
there be no deception about the fact that, as long as 
these politicians with their smashing schemes of con- 



THE WILSON WEDGE 133 

quest remain in power, it will hardly be possible to 
reach an agreement. Of course this is now a rosy pros- 
pect, but the German Socialists do not stimulate opti- 
mism either in peace or war." 

And do all the Socialists swallow all this ? They do 
not. My reliable advices from Germany leave me in 
no doubt that approximately the same proportion of 
"doubting Thomases" continues to exist as when I left 
there. To be sure, they do most of their doubting 
under the safety of silence. 

A little anecdote may illustrate the state of mind of 
the non-swallowers. 

One early autumn day, 1916, I was walking alone 
by the Elba River towards Konigstein. I couldn't 
help feeling bright-spirited as I swung along with my 
eyes drinking in the lovely Saxon landscape to which 
nature has been so kind. Back in Hennersdorf, the 
little children, just released from school, were strip- 
ping the last blackberries from the bushes that bordered 
the highroad, while ahead the Konigstein rose ab- 
ruptly from the waters, with the sun burnishing the 
old fortress that crowned its summit, once a sentinel 
against Austria but now the prison of British officers. 

In a beet field that bordered the road, a solitary man 
was working. 

"Looks like a good crop," I greeted cheerily. 

"Good enough, ,1 suppose," he muttered without en- 
thusiasm. 

He frowned and seemed out of keeping with the 
peaceful sunlit country. He clearly had a grievance, 
which made him journalistically interesting. So I tar- 
ried. 



134 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

My accent soon revealed in the patches of conversa- 
tion which followed that I was not a countryman of his. 
When I told him that I was an American I respect- 
fully paused to await the usual fusillade of abuse 
against our munition-making, one of the many little 
customs, too numerous to mention, which caused brain- 
storms amongst the Kaiser's subjects. I felt embar- 
rassed when it did not come. 

On the contrary, after some questioning on his part, 
he felt that he could safely ventilate his feelings to one 
who had escaped what to him was clearly the misfor- 
tune of having been born under the German flag. He 
blurted out: "I am a soldier." 

"Why do you not wear your uniform ?" I asked. 

"I am home on leave for five weeks to work in the 
fields," he explained. "I hate the uniform. I'm glad to 
be out of it." 

"Soldiering has its unpleasant occasions," I con- 
soled. 

"It is all unpleasant with me." He talked rapidly 
and with anger. "Did you see that big white build- 
ing back across the river? — Well, that's a prison for 
criminals — for men that murder and rob. They are 
treated better than we who go out and fight for our 
country." 

Thi^ is not the general sentiment in the German 
army, so I remonstrated with the man that perhaps 
he had been unfortunate in being under the jurisdic- 
tion of one of the more brutal of the under-officers. 

"There are plenty who feel the same as I do," he 
argued. "We're tired of sacrificing ourselves to enrich 
landowners and industrialists. We are especially sick 
of the way our newspapers lie to us about the good- 



THE WILSON WEDGE 135 

ness of our government and our duty, always duty. I 
can not understand why you remain in Germany. I 
wanted to go to America before the war, but my wife 
was afraid of seasickness, so, like a fool, I stayed." 

And the man actually sobbed at the recollection of 
the chance he had missed. "Can you leave Germany V 
he asked. 

That was the question that had been bothering me 
for months, but to him I merely said, "Of course!" 

Then his passion burst all bounds. 

"You are my friend," he said. "When you reach 
America, tell the people not to believe anything that 
comes from our Government. Tell them that the Ger- 
man newspapers lie. But do not wait until you reach 
home," he hurried on excitedly. "You are an Amer- 
ican, not a German subject, and you can do things 
that we dare not do. Write to your newspapers at once 
that the German newspapers are full of lies." 

,1 was about to explain that journalists had to sub- 
mit all "copy" to the official censor, and that it was 
not his custom to pass just that kind of material. Be- 
sides there were considerations of one's health and all 
that sort of thing. Before I could reply, however, 
there was a clatter of hoofs where the road turned up 
from the river, and two cavalry officers galloped into 
view. A frightened look passed over the face of the 
man, whose tongue was silenced by the sight of author- 
ity. "You are my friend, remember," he said softly. 
"Just make believe you stopped because I asked you the 
time of day." 

So I pulled out my watch and said "Half-past four," 
then passed on leaving one of the seventy millions to 
work in the beet-field while his thoughts turned bit- 



136 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

terly to another land and the life that might have 
been. 

An exception, you will say ! That he was unusually 
vehement, I admit; yet I did meet others with like 
sentiments when German spirits sank to their lowest 
in late 1016. 

I agreed, at that time, that the number of Germans 
who would welcome a revolution which would result in 
the overthrow of their present government was between 
fifteen and twenty per cent. 

In the early summer of 1918 my informants in Ger- 
many assured me that the majority of the people, hope- 
ful because of the peace with Russia and the victories 
in the West, again returned to the boastful tone of 
the first two years. Therefore, they said, the fifteen 
to twenty per cent, should be reduced by five, until the 
Allied offensive again swung back the scales in the late 
summer. 

The extremists, let me again remind the reader, are 
not of the main body of Socialists, but make up the 
supporters of the eighteen Socialist Independents in 
the Reichstag. Needless to repeat they do not have a 
free hand, but are steadily fought by Junkers and Ma- 
jority Socialists alike. The official summary of the 
sentences passed in May by the Supreme Court of the 
German Empire at Leipzig on twelve persons charged 
with treason and other offences makes an interesting 
revelation of the thoroughness of the German system of 
suppression. The prisoners, who received sentences 
of from two and one-half to eight years' penal servitude, 
were all described in court as adherents of the Inde- 
pendent Socialists and all the offences were concerned 



THE WILSON WEDGE 137 

with the unlawful circulation of leaflets. The convicts 
are described as follows: 

"(1) A shop girl, aged 23 (two and a half years' 
penal servitude) ; (2) a factory girl, aged 19 ; (3) a fac- 
tory girl, aged 20; (4) a working woman, aged 21 
(four years' penal servitude) ; (5) a woman librarian, 
aged 27; (6) a mason's apprentice, aged 17; (7) a 
bookkeeper, aged 23; (8) a draughtsman's apprentice, 
aged 17 ; (9) a printer, aged 66 (four years' penal servi- 
tude) ; (10) a mason's wife, aged 36 (18 months' penal 
servitude); (11) a shopkeeper, aged 26 (eight years' 
penal servitude) ; and (12) a piano-maker's apprentice, 
aged 16 (two and a half years' imprisonment). 

In no country in the world have I seen so many 
placards offering a reward for the detection of crime 
as in Germany. The highly-developed national char- 
acteristic of spying upon one another and cackling to 
officialdom after the manner of the "good boy" in school 
is proving of great value to the police in the suppres- 
sion of anything tending to undermine the unity of 
will to win. 

The following notice was tacked up all over Berlin 
in the spring of 1917 : 

THE COMMANDANT IN THE MAEK OF 
BRANDENBURG ANNOUNCES 
the reward of 3,000 marks for information 
leading to the arrest of the writer of the 
pamphlet : "The Lessons of The Great Strike 
of The People." 

Though the chief of the military police, a notoriously 
stern oppressor of anything savouring of democracy, 
offered the reward it is not without significance that 



138 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

the man who collected it is an avowed Socialist living 
in Neukoln, a manufacturing suburb of Berlin. 

After Liebknecht was sentenced to five years' penal 
servitude in the summer of 1917, the chief remaining 
thorns in the thick side of autocracy have been Haase 
and Dittmann. Haase impressed me as the most able 
man among the German Socialists; indeed, he is one 
of the sharpest minds I have ever encountered. He 
has a poise that the impetuous Liebknecht lacked, which 
has enabled him somehow to work within the drastic 
German law. Dittmann, honest in his convictions, and 
fearless in his denunciation, had been dogged by detec- 
tives since late 1916 when he delivered his scathing 
attack in the Reichstag upon the reign of terror sys- 
tem of preventive arrest.* They got him on a tech- 
nicality during the quickly-suppressed riots of Feb- 
ruary, 1918, which enabled them to put him out of the 
way for five years. 

His colleague, Deputy Bauer, who enjoys the en- 
viable distinction of having had more speeches sup- 
pressed than any other member, aptly summarised the 
situation when he said in June, 1918: "The Censor- 
ship is becoming more and more the instrument of an- 
nexationists and stand-patters on political reform. In 
Breslau the general in command not only prohibits 
public democratic gatherings, but refuses to allow party 
members to meet in one another's homes. The party's 
local secretary was even proceeded against by the army 
authorities because he forwarded to them a petition by 
the wives of soldiers. In my own case, the command- 
ing general has made it impossible for me to speak to 

•For this dramatic and informative speech, see "The Land of 
Deepening Shadow" — Chapter XV. 



THE WILSON WEDGE 139 

my own constituents. On the other hand, the cam- 
paign of the annexationists is officially encouraged." 

The common idea in Great Britain and the United 
States that the Germans as a whole are yearning for a 
democracy such as ours is in direct contradiction to 
the case. We have flaws to which the German author- 
ities spare no pains to draw the attention of their sub- 
jects. These flaws gain added weight in German minds 
through the fact that for upwards of four years they 
have been somewhat more than holding the rest of the 
world at bay. Until a man sets his heart on something 
difficult to attain and makes up his mind that he will 
do everything to attain it, his achievements will not 
be great. So it is with a whole people. The Germans 
this far have a confused idea as to how much they 
really want democracy. They are still clannish amongst 
the nations. There are less "internationalists'' among 
their Socialists than among the Socialists of other coun- 
tries. The Germans as a whole want no more drastic 
political reforms than those I discussed in the last chap- 
ter. 

Even the extremely broad-minded and able Profes- 
sor Delbriick, whose independent tendencies led to his 
resignation as Minister of the Interior in 1916, wrote 
in the Preussische Jahrbiicher a year later: 

"The belief that the great democracies of the West 
are real and genuine democracies is still cherished by 
many people, but those who see deeper have long recog- 
nised that that is an error. These so-called democracies 
are in reality governed by groups of professional politi- 
cians, capitalists, newspaper proprietors, and journal- 
ists. The influence of the people is very small, and if 
we in Germany also went over to the system of Parlia- 



14© THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

mentarisms, we should not increase but diminish the 
influence which the people has hitherto exerted upon 
the Government. 

"Just as we shall remove the article in the Consti- 
tution which blocks the way to the Ministry to Parlia- 
mentarism as such, the English will remove the rule 
that every Minister must have a seat in Parliament. 
The English Government already has five or six mem- 
bers who do not own their rise to a Parliamentary 
career — Geddes, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Fish- 
er, the distinguished historian and Minister of Educa- 
tion, and others. In a certain sense General Smuts, 
statesman and soldier, who has been given an influential 
advisory position in the English War Cabinet, belongs 
to the same class. Thus in the hour of need the 
Mother Country of Parliamentarism has summoned the 
best men from the free professions, and done so be- 
cause they were men who enjoyed public confidence." 

What would be the result if the masses of the people 
could show their sentiments at the polls ? — you may 
wonder. After nearly four years of war they did so 
at the by-election in the Saxon political contest to 
elect a member of the Reichstag to succeed a Socialist 
who had died. The district is mostly manufacturing 
and has been described as "red." 

There were two candidates. The first, of the Social- 
ist Majority, stood with his party behind the war ma- 
chine and against President Wilson's distinction be- 
tween the German people and the German Government. 
His opponent, an Independent Socialist, stood on a 
platform which, since March, 1916, has registered itself 
consistently against militarism and is largely in favour 
of President Wilson's distinction. He was snowed un- 
der by the "tame" Socialist by 12,400 votes to 4,800. 



THE WILSON WEDGE 141 

In the clay by day conception of the war we are 
actually fighting practically every German in Germany 
— and a few million even more dangerous Germans out- 
side their country's present military frontiers. But in 
the broader conception, which a constructive statesman 
should correctly take, we are fighting the German peo- 
ple only until they realise that we have the power to 
back up our determination to tolerate no further their 
anachronistic, bureaucratised feudalism, which is a 
menace simply because they in their efficient tens of 
millions support it. 

The Wilsonian policy of making a distinction is, 
therefore, in its deeper aspects, entirely correct. 

There is nothing the matter with the Wilson wedge. 
But just as the wedge of iron will not split wood with- 
out the blows of a hammer, so will the wedge of diplo- 
macy not rend the German people from their rulers 
unless driven by the smashes of blockade, armies, guns 
and shells. 

That President Wilson understands this clearly is 
evidenced by his Baltimore speech of "force to the 
utmost." That he realises also that even the extreme 
case may arise that the wedge may not entirely succeed 
and the wood have to be reduced to pulp is the senti- 
ment expressed at the tomb of Washington on July 
4, 1918, when he demanded "the destruction of every 
arbitrary power anywhere that can separately and se- 
cretly and of its single choice disturb the peace of the 
world; or if it cannot be presently destroyed, its vir- 
tual reduction to impotence." 

I have seen German soldiers visibly tremble at the 
knees and look terrified in the presence of officers and 
officials whom they fear. One wonders at such times 



142 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

that they have backbone enough to enable them to keep 
their bodies rigid. Yet these same soldiers, when or- 
dered by their officers and officials, will storm against 
Allied entrenched positions and fight like demons. 
There is a deep moral in this for the student of 
philosophy and of the war. 

The German people will not revolt until they are 
made to feel that there is a greater force outside in the 
world than that force of which they form a part and 
which they have been taught since childhood is irre- 
sistible. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SECEET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 

Isn't it wonderful how the Germans continue to 
hold out!" is a remark I hear frequently in the 
Allied countries. Sometimes it is said cynically of one's 
own efforts, and sometimes with pure admiration. 

There is little wonderful about it. A consideration 
of the facts of the case in proper perspective show that 
most of the miracles enabling Germany to hold out have 
been performed by the Allies. 

At the outbreak of the war there were two great of- 
fensive forces in existence — forces counted upon to make 
their respective sides victorious. One was the German 
Army; the other, the British Navy. 

The latter was not necessarily an offensive force in 
the sense that it would demolish the German Navy and 
German ports, but in the still greater sense that its 
full application in completely cutting Germany from 
all overseas supplies would, with the blockading effect 
of Russia in the East, inevitably strangle Germany if 
she could not win in a short war. 

Just as the neutral countries of Belgium and Luxem- 
burg restricted — on paper — the full use of Germany's 
military power, so did another set of neutral countries 
restrict the use of Britain's naval power. 

The essential, history-making fact, however, is that 
Germany secured a tremendous material advantage at 

143 



144 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

the very outset by scrapping her agreements, whereas 
Britain sought to adhere to hers. This is point number 
one for the Isn't-it-wonderful's ! 

In Germany politics became the instrument of the 
Army, but in England the Navy became the instrument 
of politics. Great Britain jumped into the whirlpool 
of war with a leaden weight around her neck. And 
she attached it herself. This weight was the "Declara- 
tion of London." Men concerned with international 
politics, some naval officers, and the international smug- 
glers developed since 1914, know what is meant by the 
Declaration of London. I find that most other people 
do not. 

Briefly it was this : Sea Law had always been more 
or less vague. Attempts had been made at the Treaty 
of Paris in 1856 and at the Hague Conferences of 1899 
and 1907 to clear it up, but with little result. In order 
to arrive at an agreement, the British Government in- 
vited representatives of the United States, France, Rus- 
sia, Italy, Japan, Germany, Austria-Hungary, the 
Netherlands and Spain to meet her representatives in 
conference in London. The result was the Declaration 
of London in 1909 which dealt precisely with blockade, 
contraband, unneutral service, destruction of neutral 
prizes, transfer to neutral flag, enemy character, neutral 
goods in vessels, convoy, resistance to search, and com- 
pensation. 

One need but examine the various provisions, par- 
ticularly those relating to contraband, to become thor- 
oughly convinced that Great Britain's representatives 
were totally unable to foresee war with Germany. They 
signed the declaration, following which it passed the 
House of Commons. The House of Lords, more dis- 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 145 

cerning, voted against it. Therefore it was not ratified, 
and consequently not legally binding on Great Britain. 

Since the war began, some zealous English opponents 
of the statesmen of their Liberal party — the party which 
dominated British affairs from 1906 to 1915, and which 
has had a considerable share in them since — have stig- 
matised the 1909 pact as the "Sea Law Made in Ger- 
many," which might lead to the inference that the 
British representatives at the Conference deliberately 
tried to aid Germany at the expense of their own coun- 
try. It is unfair to say that this was their intention, 
although as events have since transpired, it certainly 
has been their accomplishment. 

When inside the German Empire, I saw that country 
sink dangerously low economically, some of the provi- 
sions of the Declaration used to flare before my vision 
in letters of electricity. 

Take contraband for example. Three kinds were 
specified, absolute, conditional, and non-contraband. 

I Absolute Contraband: 

1. Arms of all kinds, including arms for sporting 
purposes, and their distinctive component parts. 

2. Projectiles, charges, and cartridges of all kinds, 
and their distinctive component parts. 

3. Powder and explosives specially prepared for 
use in war. 

4. Gun-mountings, limber boxes, limbers, military 
waggons, field forges, and their distinctive component 
parts. 

5. Clothing and equipment of a distinctively mili- 
tary character. 

6. All kinds of harness of a distinctively military 
character. 



146 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

7. Saddle, draught, and pack animals suitable for 
use in war. 

8. Articles of camp equipment, and their distinc- 
tive component parts. 

9. Armour plates. 

10. Warships, including boats, and their distinctive 
component parts of such a nature that they can only 
be used on a vessel of war. 

11. Implements and apparatus designed exclusively 
for the manufacture of munitions of war, for the manu- 
facture or repair of arms, or war material for use on 
land or sea. 

II Conditional contraband. This includes articles 
which may or may not be used for purposes of war. 
They may, without notice, be treated as contraband of 
war, under the name of conditional contraband, and 
include : 

1. Foodstuffs. 

2. Forage and grain, suitable for feeding animals. 

3. Clothing, fabrics for clothing, and boots and 
shoes, suitable for use in war. 

4. Gold and silver in coin or bullion ; paper money. 

5. Vehicles of all kinds available for use in war, 
and their component parts. 

6. Vessels, craft, and boats of all kinds; floating 
docks, parts of docks and their component parts. 

7. Railway material, both fixed and rolling-stock, 
and material for telegraphs, wireless telegraphs, and 
telephones. 

8. Balloons and flying machines and their distinc- 
tive component parts, together with accessories and ar- 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 147 

tides recognisable as intended for use in connection 
with balloons and flying machines. 

9. Fuel; lubricants. 

10. Powder and explosives not specially prepared 
for use in war. 

11. Barbed wire and implements for fixing and cut- 
ting the same. 

12. Horseshoes and shoeing materials. 

13. Harness and saddlery. 

14. Field-glasses, telescopes, chronometers, and all 
kinds of nautical instruments. 

It is the non-contraband list which is the miracle. 
The Declaration reads: 

III N on- contraband. Goods not susceptible of use 
in war may not be declared contraband of war. The 
following may not be declared contraband: 

1. Raw cotton, wool, silk, jute, flax, hemp, and 
other raw materials of the textile industries, and yarns 
of the same. 

2. Oil seeds and nuts; copra. 

3. Rubber, resins, gums, and lacs; hops. 

4. Raw hides and horns, bones, and ivory. 

5. Natural and artificial manures, including ni- 
trates and phosphates for agricultural purposes. 

6. Metallic ores. 

7. Earths, clays, lime, chalk, stones, including mar- 
ble, bricks, slates, and tiles. 

8. Chinaware and glass. 

9. Paper and paper-making materials. 

10. Soap, paint and colours, including articles ex- 
clusively used in their manufacture, and varnish. 



148 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

11. Bleaching-powder, soda ash, caustic soda, salt 
cake, ammonia, and sulphate of copper. 

12. Agricultural, mining, textile, and printing ma- 
chinery. 

13. Precious and semi-precious stones, pearls, moth- 
er-of-pearl, and coral. 

14. Clocks and watches, other than chronometers. 

15. Fashion and fancy goods. 

16. Feathers of all kinds, hairs and bristles. 

17. Articles of household furniture and decora- 
tion ; office furniture and requisites. 

Consider this list in the light of the facts of the war. 

Cotton is used for propulsive ammunition, for army 
clothing and for automatic tires. Silk is used in mak- 
ing observation balloons, and flax in the wings of aero- 
planes, yet the Government of Great Britain solemnly 
agreed that these articles were not susceptible of use in 
war. I emphasise Great Britain in the Declaration 
because of her rank as first sea power. 

With respect to paragraph 2, I have seen notices in 
Germany exhorting the people to grow and gather such 
oil seeds as sun flower, poppy, linseed, nuts and cherry 
stones. I saw German agents pour into Holland with 
the result that the Dutch multiplied their importation 
of linseed by 10,000 per cent. Soaring also went their 
importation of copra. 

Why should the average American show any interest 
in the bald statement that Holland had greatly in- 
creased her importation of copra? — As a rule, he 
doesn't. He is likely to, however, when he learns that 
copra is the dry pulp of cocoanut ; that it is two-thirds 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 149 

oil, and that like the other oleaginous materials just 
mentioned, it is vital to German power to make war. 

This is a war of machinery in its practical opera- 
tions, and the oils extracted from such materials are 
not only used for lubricating purposes, but are essen- 
tials in the manufacture of explosives. Consequently, 
Germany's long-continued success in importing oil-mak- 
ing products under the nose of the politically-shackled 
British fleet, directly results in additional tens of thou- 
sands of Britain's soldiery and America's soldiery sleep- 
ing in France and Flanders instead of returning to 
their homes. 

Herr Batocki, as German Food Controller, testified 
to the Reichstag on May 10, 1917, when referring to 
imports: "In the main we depend largely upon im- 
ports for our supplies of oils and fats. Our divinely- 
wise policy, however, has enabled us to accumulate 
enough to permit us to face the future with hope." 

Superior transport has contributed largely to German 
military successes. Rubber plays a highly important 
role in modern transport. Further comment on that 
item in paragraph 3 would be superfluous. 

In paragraph 5 we find artificial manures, includ- 
ing nitrates, for agricultural purposes. The bumper 
crops from Germany's scientifically intensive agricul- 
ture were due largely to the use of these. Further- 
more, nitric acid is derived from nitrates, and prop- 
erly combined with toluol makes T1STT, one of the most 
terrible of high explosives. 

In paragraph 6 we find the British Government agree- 
ing with Germany that metallic ores are not suscepti- 
ble of use in war. How about those used in steel-harden- 
ing to make the tool steel necessary for the manufacture 



i$o THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

of munitions — hardeners such as tungsten, chromium, 
vanadium, and manganese? 

In paragraph 9 we learn that paper-making materials 
are not to be considered as contraband of war. Wood 
pulp is the prime paper-making material. It happens 
also to be Germany's present munition-substitute for 
cotton, the cellulose derived from it forming the base 
of the charge that hurls German death-dealing projec- 
tiles across ]STo-Man's Land. It would not be fair, how- 
ever, to blame the British Government of 1909 for not 
foreseeing this, inasmuch as their best chemists were 
unorganised for peace ; whereas those of Germany were 
organised for war. 

Some of the chemicals in paragraph 11 are also of 
great value in the manufacture of explosives. Five 
pounds of fat treated with soda can be made to yield 
one pound of glycerine, which, like the glycerine de- 
rived from the seeds mentioned above, can be nitrated to 
yield twice the amount of nitroglycerine. 

So much for the contraband, conditional-contraband 
and non-contraband classifications of the Declaration 
of London. Regarding seizure the Declaration says : 

"Absolute contraband is liable to capture if it is 
shown to be destined to territory belonging to or oc- 
cupied by the enemy, or to the armed forces of the 
enemy. It is immaterial whether the carriage of the 
goods is direct or entails transshipment or a subsequent 
transport by land. 

"Where a vessel is carrying absolute contraband, 
her papers are conclusive proof as to the voyage on which 
she is engaged, unless she is found clearly out of the 
course indicated by her papers and unable to give ade- 
quate reasons to justify such deviation." 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 151 

From this second paragraph, it is clear that even 
though Great Britain enlarged her contraband list from 
the conditional contraband list, as she had a legal right 
to do, contraband could reach Germany from America 
by Holland or Scandinavia if the ship's papers and the 
list of cargo consignees tended to show that the goods 
are destined for neutrals and not for the enemy. The 
burden of proof rested with the British. 

"Conditional contraband is not liable to capture, ex- 
cept when found on board a vessel bound for territory 
belonging to or occupied by the enemy, or for the armed 
forces of the enemy, and when it is not to be discharged 
in an intervening neutral port." 

Note the qualifying clause when it is not to be dis- 
charged in an intervening neutral port. Thus though 
conditional contraband could not be sent to the manu- 
facturing districts of the Rhine region via Bremen and 
Hamburg, it was quite all right to send it there via 
Amsterdam and Rotterdam. This was not a serious in- 
convenience to Germany, inasmuch as the rail haul from 
Hamburg to Cologne is 279 miles, and from Bremer- 
haven to Cologne 317 miles; whereas the distances 
from Rotterdam and Amsterdam respectively to Cologne 
are only 165 and 109 miles. 

Thus, "Clear for a neutral port!" became a mari- 
time motto to such an extent that even Iceland proved 
useful in a war which, until America's entry, was at 
times waged largely on the quibblings of technical 
niceties. 

These, then, are some of the essential provisions of 
a document which has been of infinitely more value to 
Germany than her high-seas fleet, and it cost only the 



152 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

travelling and living expenses of the few delegates sent 
to the convention. 

The British Foreign Office early in the war got into 
international difficulties by treating the Declaration 
of London as though it were ratified and binding — by 
accepting it practically en bloc and then nibbling into 
it in a way that soon caused friction with the various 
neutrals, chief of whom was the United States. 

Washington's first sharp note of the war was to Great 
Britain and not to Germany when Secretary Bryan pro- 
tested against British interference with neutral trade. 

From the outbreak of war until March, 1915, all 
kinds of supplies poured into Germany like the tide 
in the flood — despite the holding up of shipping by the 
British Navy. The British Order in Council of March 
of that year, however, reduced the deluge to rivers which 
in return were reduced to brooks in the third year of 
the war. Not until we had entered the struggle and 
placed an embargo on this side of the ocean on goods 
sent to Germany through contiguous neutral countries 
did the brooks dry up at the source. 

Yet, from the beginning, the overwhelming majority 
of the people of Great Britain and the United States 
thoroughly believed that Germany was being blockaded. 
They looked upon her as a great storehouse that could 
not be replenished from outside and was eating itself 
up. If the German Armies did not win before the store- 
house was depleted, Germany must collapse. 

Yet in the second year of the war such advertisements 
as the following were appearing in pro-German publica- 
tions in the United States. Those opposite are repro- 
duced from the October 13, 1915, issue of George Syl- 
vester Viereck's Weekly, The Fatherland, which in the 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 153 

same issue boasted: "Inasmuch as fully ninety per 
cent of the American people are hyphenated, The Fa- 
therland is quite willing to be the spokesman for so 
impressive a majority." 



The Fatherland Needs Coffee 

.Have you forgotten your friends and relatives in the old country ? Coffee is not produced in Germany 
and consequently ha3 become exceedingly scarce. These conditions have caused the price to raise far 
above the means of the majority of people and is causing untold discomfort to thousands of people who 
depend upon this beverage for daily use. Here is an opportunity to show that you have not forgotten 
them. Send them five pounds of our A I quality coffee. 

11/ P QUIP coffee to any part of Germany and Austria-Hungary — S pounds of the best at $1.85, in- 
11 £* Oilir eluding all postage and packing charges. I f delivery does.not take place, we refund money. 

1 but send your order without delay, enclosi 
' full address of the person to whom you 1 
If you want to add a postal card telling who the gift is from, plea 

HAMBURG-AMERICAN COFFEE CO. 

-j, „ . _ , (12 HANOVER SQUARE > NFW vftR1 . rlTV 

War Package Dept. < 76 WATER STREET J NEW YORK CITY 

ONE BLOCK EAST OF HANOVER SQUARE «L" STATION 



There were two reasons for the popular belief that 
Germany was being blockaded: 

1. The natural supposition that Great Britain would 





WAR PACKAGE 

for Germany and Austria-Hungary 

Delivered from our [business house in Rotterdam. Holland, to any address, including the trenches— 
10 lb. Package of first-class groceries consist* of: — 

2 LBS. CERVALAT SAUSAGE 2 LBS. LIVER PIE 2 LBS. COCOA 
2 LBS. VEAL PIE 2 LBS. COFFEE 

This Package is delivered for the Price of S4.EO 
5 lb*. Package includes the above-mentioned foods in 1-lb. lots — is delivered for $2.50 
100 of the best Dutch Cigars are delivered to the trenches for $4.20 
Arrival guaranteed. The above prices include all charges of postage, packing and delivery. Send money- 
order or check and state address of the sender and the person to whom the goods are consigned. 

War Package Dept., International Import and Export Commission Syndicate 

2 and 4 Stone Street Telephone Broad 1159 New York City 



use her sea power to the utmost. The truth is she had 
the name without the game. 

2. The sepulchral stillness in Germany and among 
neutrals concerning; the stuff that went through the 



154 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

blockade;* and the howl put up when anything was 
stopped. Indeed, I soon learned that Britain's inter- 
ference and fancied interference with the trading rights 
of neutrals was Germany's chief propaganda card — a 
card of dissension played with telling effect in the 
United States. 

Thus, while the German Government was scrapping 
two Hague conventions and two neutrality agreements, 
which it had ratified, it insisted to the world that Great 
Britain should adhere to the Declaration of London, 
which it had not ratified. 

Happily, Germany's ruthless submarine declaration 
of February, 1915, made the British Foreign Office feel 
that we might condone a further tightening of the 
strings. As a matter of fact, though we protested from 
time to time, we could not be over-insistent and drastic 
owing to Germany's peculiar custom of perpetrating 
some fresh sea atrocity whenever Anglo-American rela- 
tions threatened to become acute. Even some well- 
informed Germans who deplored the sinking of the 
Lusitania on practical grounds, admitted this point to 
me. 

Through 1915 Great Britain developed a policy with 
Scandinavia and Holland which reduced their re-ex- 
ports into Germany. Germany unconsciously aided her 
in this by flamboyantly holding dye-stuffs over the heads 
of her neutral neighbours for bargaining purposes. She 
furthermore informed them that if they allowed any 
of these products of her monopolised industry of which 
she was so proud to be re-exported they would be strafed. 
Acting on this cue, Great Britain told Sweden, for ex- 

* I use "blockade" in the broad sense, not the strictly legal 
sense. 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 155 

ample, that if she permitted products which she im- 
ported from the British Empire to reach Germany, she 
would get no more of these. Britain then began to 
swell her contraband list and began more strictly to en- 
force her Order in Council of March 11, 1915, which 
declared that no commodities of any kind would be al- 
lowed to reach Germany. Thus, under pressure, from 
both sets of belligerents, the Swedish Government com- 
piled a list of things which might not be re-exported. 

At the end of the first year of war, this embargo list 
had grown to nine pages of fine print. Thence began, 
unobserved by the world in general, the dramatic and 
vital struggle on the great silent battlefields of the Neu- 
tral North. 

The gorgeous, world-renowned Grand Hotel in Stock- 
holm was to all appearances turned into a stock-exchange 
over night. I saw knots of men put their heads to- 
gether in the lobby to discuss any kind of a business 
transaction from the collecting of junk to the pur- 
chase of an oil ship. Other groups sat in whispered dis- 
cussions behind locked doors, messenger boys darted 
through the corridors, while telephones tingled inces- 
santly in the rooms throughout the great hotel. The 
atmosphere was that of Wall Street or of the Wheat 
Pit of Chicago. 

The Continental produced a similar scene, as did the 
other hotels to a lesser degree. Hordes of Germans, 
trying to buy and get their goods home to their respec- 
tive country, Englishmen seeking to forestall the one 
and aid the other, while a sprinkling of neutrals gar- 
nered all the way from San Francisco to Teheran, were 
taking a hand in the biggest game that Stockholm ever 
knew. 



156 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Germany played her cards with characteristic thor- 
oughness. As we have seen, her system of government 
enables her heads of departments speedily to enlist the 
services of experts in any new line. Thus her machin- 
ery for beating the blockade developed with the block- 
ade. She didn't pick out men for drawing-room con- 
nections but because they could get results; and the 
shrewd buyers and traders that she sent into Sweden 
and other neutral countries had the Imperial Govern- 
ment at their backs to enable them to go the limit. In 
Scandinavia, Switzerland, Holland, and Roumania, I 
was impressed with the great proportion of shrewd and 
able Jewish business men among her agents. The block- 
ade was not a side-show with them and the Government 
department in which they worked. It was their highly 
developed scientific specialty. 

In the game of beating the embargo buying soon 
became a comparatively simple matter compared with 
the delivery of goods. Once a Scandinavian country 
placed a commodity on the embargo list, it could only 
be smuggled out to Germany by crooked means. That 
such means existed in plenitude I learned first-hand in 
my associations with smugglers. I soon saw that one 
of the commodities most desired by Germany was cot- 
ton, which Sweden did not feel constrained to place on 
her embargo list until June 6, 1915. The British 
Government had not yet declared cotton contraband, al- 
though a portion of the Press was incessantly hammer- 
ing it on the subject. 

While Parliament debated the question, and the Cabi- 
net considered it, I saw the German ring of cotton buy- 
ers in Stockholm quadruple their efforts. On one oc- 
casion, after a pleasant chat on the Grand Hotel ve- 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 157 

randa with a neutral diplomat and a well-known Ameri- 
can cotton king who was just then making a tour of 
Europe to inspect his cotton interests, I stepped inside 
and was accosted by three Jews who were fighting Ger- 
many's trade battles on the Swedish front. I had al- 
ready talked with these men several times, and if I had 
entertained any doubts of the nature of their activities 
these doubts were now dispelled. 

"Who was the strange gentleman to whom you were 
talking just now on the veranda V asked one of them. 

"He is one of the greatest cotton men in America," 
I returned with warmth. 

I shall never forget the devouringly eager manner of 
the three men at my simple announcement. They came 
at me with outstretched arms. "Introduce us!" "In- 
troduce us!" they pleaded in unison. 

It is significant that this was in late July, nearly two 
months after cotton could not be taken out of the coun- 
try — that is, according to Swedish regulations. 

But such trifles as regulations did not discourage my 
three acquaintances. After they bought a load of cot- 
ton at Gothenburg, on the west coast of Sweden, they 
decided to take it to Stockholm on the east coast. They 
could do this inasmuch as there was nothing against 
transferring it in the country. They preferred the 
long route by boat rather than the short route by rail 
— a preference which under existing war-conditions was 
not to save transportation rates. A code message to 
Berlin, a German destroyer at the right place in the 
Baltic, and the embargo was beaten. The Germans took 
the cotton, released the boat, and the trio started the 
trick all over again. 

I found two gangs working together in a decidedly 



158 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

clever scheme in Copenhagen and Stockholm. They 
specialised in many commodities, but particularly in 
rubber. A German-controlled firm in Denmark would 
receive a consignment of rubber from New York. It 
had stipulated with the Danish Government that it 
would not re-export this rubber to Germany, the Dan- 
ish Government having already in an agreement with 
Great Britain placed rubber upon the embargo list. 
Permission could be obtained, however, by the firm in 
Denmark to ship this rubber to its branch firm in Stock- 
holm. When it arrived in Stockholm, it would be re- 
boxed and labelled and sent to Germany, passing 
through Denmark. It could be sent from Sweden inas- 
much as it had not come to that country from over the 
seas, and was merely passing through that country in 
transit bond. 

From the outset of the war, Germany sought to pur- 
chase every ounce of copper in Sweden, as elsewhere, 
and numbers of Swedes naturally accepted the high 
prices offered, some manufacturers, indeed, running 
temporarily short themselves. The director of one of 
the largest paper mills told me that he was continually 
pestered by German agents trying to buy all kinds of 
scrap metal, especially copper. He added that they 
did not stop with the owners, but offered the workmen 
alluring prices for any bits of metal that they could 
smuggle out of the factories. He said that the practice 
went so far that most managers had to employ squads 
of watchmen in order to retain possession of lighting 
and other appurtenances. 

One German attempt at smuggling shows that some- 
body somewhere had a deep sense of humour. During 
the great offensive against the Russians, Hindenburg's 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 159 

popularity increased to such an extent that Germany 
ordered several hundred thousand busts of him in 
Sweden for early delivery. The busts, she specified, were 
to be of copper. When Britain's watch dogs in Sweden 
heard of this, they showed their teeth. They did not 
object to Germany honouring her great idol by placing a 
statuette of him in every home in the Fatherland, but 
they did insist that if the statuettes were to come from 
Sweden they would have to be of wood, papier-mache, 
or some other innocuous substance. 

Though this attempt was nipped the Germans suc- 
ceeded in importing quantities of "onions" made of 
rubber and Dutch "herrings" moulded from butter and 
deceptively coated. 

Later, when I was again in the Fatherland, there 
came a time when shaving became torture owing to the 
lack of proper made-in-Germany soap due to fat short- 
age, and the failure to get any from America, — where 
by consensus of European opinion the best in the world 
is made. Such failure was due to the embargo which 
European neutrals, under British pressure, put on soap. 
After many uncomfortable months, my friends and I 
suddenly discovered that we could once more get the 
real article from America in various German cities. On 
opening the boxes, however, we found all the instruc- 
tions printed in Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. 
Somebody in the north had beaten the embargo with a 
shipload of soap. 

Whereas the governments of the Scandinavian coun- 
tries dealt with Great Britain directly in the compila- 
tion of their embargo lists, quite a different system 
pertained in Holland. A commission known as the 
Netherlands Oversea Trust was established at the 



160 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Hague in the autumn of 1914 to act as intermediary 
between Dutch merchants and traders and the Entente 
Powers. Their proposition, reduced to simplest terms, 
was that the Allies should permit goods to enter Hol- 
land under the sanction of the N. O. T. which in turn 
should be responsible for them not going into Germany. 

The organisation is managed by a board of directors, 
appointed and dismissed by the shareholders, the latter 
consisting of the most powerful business concerns in 
Holland, as the Holland-American line, the Amster- 
dam Bank and the Netherlands Lloyd. The method of 
operation was simple and theoretically prevented the 
re-exportation to Germany of goods brought into the 
country through the medium of the N. O. T. Most of 
the imports were brought through it anyhow, since the 
Government concerned itself only with such absolute 
contraband as arms, ammunition, and the like. 

If a Dutch merchant desired to import a certain com- 
modity, he filled in a fonn issued by the Oversea Trust, 
the officials of which were then supposed to ascertain 
whether he was a bona fide Dutch merchant or a link 
in the German chain. Permission granted, he had to 
furnish the Trust with a bank guarantee to the amount 
of goods ordered, this being a forfeit or a part-forfeit, 
should the goods be re-exported. 

The deposit, however, proved far from an absolute 
guarantee of good behaviour. Some dealers in oil, for 
example, imported a vast amount and then reshipped 
it all to Germany. Inasmuch as Germany needs lubri- 
cants to win the war, and her leaders are determined to 
let nothing stand in the way of victory, she paid a price 
sufficient to allow the Dutch dealers to sacrifice their 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 161 

entire deposit to the Oversea Trust and still clear a 
handsome profit. 

It must be remembered that the Overseas Trust had 
no official connection with the Dutch Government. This 
proved a grievous weakness from the Allied point of 
view inasmuch as the Netherlands government officials 
on the frontier had no power to hold up goods with the 
N". O. T. label. The 2sT. O. T.'s only recourse was to 
find the original exporter, if it had proof that goods left 
the country, and refuse him any further permission to 
import. The German agents met this little difficulty by 
simply growing more mushroom importers. 

Holland developed an export as well as a re-export 
problem. Early in the war the Dutch farmers took 
full advantage of the phenomenon that they could get 
three times as much by selling produce to the Germans 
as to their own countrymen. These farmers were soon 
driving in cheerfully every week to Rotterdam, Gouda, 
and other centres, where they took pride in displaying 
fat rolls of money in the coffee-houses before strolling 
across the street to pass them through the window to the 
receiving teller in the bank. Quite a change from the 
days when the ancestors of the get-rich-quick farmers 
began to reclaim the land from the sea, a period when 
more people were employed in manuring it than could 
be fed on what it produced. 

The flow of milk, cheese, butter, eggs, meat, potatoes 
and other vegetables to Germany, caused the consumers 
in the cities to complain bitterly that not only were the 
prices of the necessities of life nearly prohibitive, but 
that food could not be obtained in sufficient quantities. 
Forced to take measures, the Government decreed that 
every town should each week take an account of sup- 



162 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

plies on Land on the basis of which the percentage of 
the country's produce which might be exported might 
be computed. 

All over the world, however, there are just as clever 
people trying to beat the law as to make the law, and 
it would be as much beside the point to argue that be- 
cause there existed in Holland regulations against ex- 
ports and re-exports that "banned" goods did not go 
out of the country as to maintain that moon-shine whis- 
key is not distilled in the mountains of Kentucky be- 
cause of federal excise laws. 

As regards the partial replenishment of the German 
national storehouse, I got quite a different and ex- 
tremely more accurate idea out where things were 
doing than I should have got as one of the British pub- 
lic reading the official assurances that the enemy was 
being blockaded. She was on paper. On both sides 
of the Dutch frontier, however, I was amazed at the 
amount of sustenance that Germany was sucking from 
Holland. 

In this I witnessed further evidence of Teuton thor- 
oughness in neglecting no detail. Gangs of smugglers 
were all over Holland. One of these, with its head- 
quarters at Roosendaal, used to send a stream of people, 
even young boys, across the line into Belgium in broad 
daylight. Women and girls were particularly active, 
the wide full skirts of the Dutch peasant becoming 
wider and fuller with contraband sewed in them. 

Some smugglers were merely employes of the Ger- 
man agents, while others, more enterprising, were in 
business for themselves. I know of one young fellow 
in Rotterdam who drew every cent that he had in the 
bank early in 1915 and spent it all for one horse. He 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 163 

then surreptitiously led the animal across the frontier 
where he received two and one-half times what he had 
paid for it. He encored the act repeatedly and might 
have become wealthy if the authorities had not finally 
stopped his activities by banishing him from the fron- 
tier zones. As it was he cleared $32,000 in less than a 
year. 

Many other Dutchmen increased the value of their 
horses by leading them in an easterly direction. An 
animal worth 400 guilders (a guilder equals forty cents) 
on one side of the line, was worth 1,000 guilders on 
the other. Two hundred guilders appears a large sum 
of money to a weary, neutral frontier-guard if he will 
but look in a specified direction for a specified length 
of time. His country is not at war, he may consolingly 
reason, and what does it matter if just one more horse 
is turned loose into Armageddon. 

In addition to the "honest" smuggler there has ex- 
isted the dealer who cheats his confiding German cus- 
tomer. This happened so often that the German au- 
thorities warned their people to beware of the wily 
Dutchman. Many German purchasers of kerosene and 
gasoline had the unpleasant truth dawn upon them 
later that they paid exorbitant prices for ordinary 
water topped with oil. 

As from Scandinavia and Holland, food and supplies 
poured into the central powers from Switzerland, Rou- 
mania and Italy. Italy, indeed, presented the most 
difficult problem. Inasmuch as the Allies hoped that 
she would enter the war the British blockade authori- 
ties closed their eyes to her imports and exports. Thus 
from August, 1914, until late May, 1915, Genoa was 
a revictualment port for the Central Powers. Even 



164 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

after Italy came into the war, there was a considerable 
leakage via Switzerland which was only stopped with the 
rebirth of the nation in the autumn of 1917 when her 
retreating armies successfully turned at bay on the 
Piave River and the rot in politics was largely cleared 
away. 

1 was in Germany in February, 1916, at the time 
Lord Robert Cecil was appointed Minister of Blockade, 
when I found deeply significant the chagrin of many 
well-informed Germans that Great Britain had now, 
seemingly, determined to make blockade a deeper study 
than in the past. Some months later, when the news 
was published in Germany that Britain had resolved to 
cast off entirely the Declaration of London, I saw one 
of the greatest rage-waves sweep through Germany of 
the many that I witnessed during the war, for the Ger- 
mans knew the importance of the muffled battle for food- 
stuffs and material. As General Rubisanen, command- 
ing at Soltau, blurted out to three of us Americans, 
whose country he had just been villifying: "God in 
heaven, what a terrible thought ! To think that all the 
soldiers of the world could never defeat the German 
Army, and then to realise that we are on the verge of 
overwhelming defeat if our economic line but sag a 
little lower." 

This was in the summer of 1916, when what I saw 
in Germany made me realise the possibilities of a 
complete blockade. Partially paralysed as it was, the 
sea power of Great Britain was literally reducing Ger- 
many's hopes to a far greater extent than were all the 
armies of the Allies. 

I got out of Germany into Holland in the autumn and 
contrived to cross the North Sea to England. I found 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 165 

there a people for the most part focussing their eyes 
on one great phase of the war — the Battle of the Somme. 
They believed that their Government had plugged up 
all the leaks in the blockade. In Germany I had seen 
the leaks, and I was thoroughly convinced that the 
blockade could be tightened and must be tightened if 
the Central Powers were ever to be defeated. 

Among other defects, I called attention in the Lon- 
don Times to the fact that Holland and Denmark were 
importing under the nose of the British fleet soy beans 
from Japan to fatten pigs; oil cake from America to 
fatten cattle ; also, maize and other cereals from across 
the seas for the same purpose. Turned into meat, these 
imports then passed into Germany. "There is one man 
from Denmark whom we always hate to see coming to 
our shores," said an important British naval officer to 
me. "He always returns home with new concessions 
from our Foreign Office — which usually means some- 
thing more for Germany." 

On the 15th of November, 1916, Lord Beresford said 
in Parliament: "Great Britain has arrived at a very 
serious crisis. The Government seems to think they 
are going to win the war by some lucky chance ; but all 
previous wars were won by energy, foresight and at- 
tack. The one thing the Germans feared was our block- 
ade, and I will quote an excellent article in the Times 
— by Mr. D. Thomas Curtin — which cited the following 
words uttered by a prominent German. 

"When the war began we thought it would be a fight 
between the German Army and the British Navy. As 
time went on we found that the English Government 
drew the teeth of its Navy and enabled us to get in 
through the then so-called blockade supplies of cotton, 



166 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

copper, lubricating oil, wool" — (here he named some 
twenty commodities) — "in a sufficiency that will last 
us many long months. How different would have been 
our position to-day if the British Navy had controlled 
the blockade, as we had every reason to fear it would. 
We can and will hold out for a long time, thanks to 
their blunders." 

This member of the German Foreign Office further 
told me that he was at a loss to understand why Great 
Britain had not exercised her sea power to the utmost. 
Of course, as a German official, it was difficult for him 
to understand a deference to neutrals which might 
wreck one's cause. In justice to the British Foreign 
Office, it is fair to state that just such deference to the 
United States was responsible for the continued chain- 
ing of the fleet. 

When we came in, we created a Board of Blockade, 
and began to ration European neutrals in such a manner 
that there would be no surplus to pass over their fron- 
tiers to the enemy. Thus in the summer of 1917 Ger- 
many was completely choked off from the seas, and the 
illusion which the average American had cherished for 
three years had become a reality. But though the bar- 
riers went down in the west, they were lifted in the 
east — just another chapter in the story of German re- 
sistance. 

One of Germany's greatest war advantages is that 
she dominates her alliance and that she in turn is domi- 
nated by the most determined collection of men in the 
world — rendered partly so by the fact that their whole 
system is staked on winning. These men have been en- 
abled to bring the maximum, strength of their alliance 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 167 

to bear at any given time, whereas the Allies have been 
fighting the enemy fractionally and serially. 

In the first place, for example, the British ]STavy 
was leashed, as I have shown. 

Secondly, the French army engaged the bulk of the 
German army while Britain built up her military 
forces. 

Thirdly, when the British army had reached its max- 
imum striking power the armies of France had, because 
of enormous losses, passed their maximum offensive 
power. 

Fourthly, when Eussia was actively engaged in the 
war we were not. 

Fifthly, when we are in the war, Eussia is out. 

In short, those who attribute Germany's resistance 
to the miraculous should bear in mind that though she 
may be said to be fighting the whole world she does not 
have to fight it all at once. 

Furthermore, her leaders are enabled through their 
system of government to make use of every scrap, hu- 
man and material, that they can muster — legless sol- 
diers mend uniforms ; prostitutes are not given free rein 
to put German soldiers out of action but are rounded up 
to fill cartridges to put Allied soldiers out of action; 
the children are mobilised for countless collections, and 
so on. 

!No heads of state have such a simple problem in one 
respect as those of Germany. The only question before 
them on any contemplated measure is: Will it benefit 
the empire ? If it will, their government machinery us- 
ually permits them to put it immediately into operation 
in the form of a military or police order, and the public 
unquestionably obeys. In parliamentary countries, dis- 



168 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

cussions by a wide field of men, most of them not ex- 
perts, are generally necessary. 

In London, for example, there has been considerable 
agitation among both the military and the civil authori- 
ties for nearly four years to solve the street-walking 
problem. In the meantime, Coventry Street, leading 
from Piccadilly Circus to Leicester Square, has devel- 
oped into what one prominent Englishman calls "the 
vilest thoroughfare in the world." In this matter the 
English charcteristic of freedom of the individual is 
carried too far. 

In London, I found some American army doctors who 
believed that they had come to Europe to treat wounded 
men within sound of the guns, and who were unpleas- 
antly surprised when they found themselves working to 
their utmost in military hospitals for venereal disease, 
so great is the havoc wrought by the army of women 
whose sole interest in the war is in the uniformed pat- 
ronage it brings them. Under the German system of 
government a stroke of the military pen would change 
these women from a debit to an asset for waging war. 

"Only a side issue," you may say. Well, it is by 
adding up a few score of these seemingly side-issues that 
you begin to get down to the reason why Germany con- 
tinues to stagger the globe. 

As in national questions, so in international, the de- 
cision rests upon, "Will it benefit the Empire?" Bel- 
gium is the shining example of such policy. In con- 
sidering a question of German ability to hold out, how- 
ever, it is necessary to include what Germany did after 
she got into Belgium. In order to pay for her huge 
imports, she had to give up some of her cherished gold ; 
but she also exchanged commodities, the chief of which 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 169 

were coal and manufactured steel products. Some of 
the coal and iron was her own, to be sure, but a great 
amount came from the occupied districts of France and 
Belgium. Now, Belgian coal, dug by Belgian miners, 
under the supervision of the invader — these miners, fed 
by Belgian relief supplies donated by Germany' s ene- 
mies and neutrals — exchanged for meat and oil from 
Holland or wood pulp from Sweden, made no strain 
upon German national resources as they existed up to 
the beginning of the war. 

When Hindenburg became Generalissimo, he made 
such a comb-out among civilians for new levies that I 
found Germany looking like mobilisation days all over 
again. But Hindenburg went too far, for he weakened 
the economic life that sustained the armies. All the 
prisoners were working under driving pressure as were 
most of the women, but these did not suffice. So the 
German leaders looked about, saw a way out of the 
difficulty, threw another Hague agreement to the winds 
and organised their colossal slave-raids in Belgium and 
France. This was not an isolated piece of Prussian 
brutality, as it is generally viewed, but a distinct link 
in the chain of German resistance. Once more Ger- 
many's necessity, or supposed necessity, had become the 
sole determinant. 

Nevertheless, under the wastage and wear of an ever- 
growing war, the German labour shortage had again be- 
come acute in 1918. After tapping the "liberated" 
provinces, the Kaiser's efficiency directors once more 
looked about and became convinced that some German 
women were not doing real war-work. They therefore 
planned the activities desired and legislated — or let us 
more correctly say, commanded — that the wives of Ger- 



170 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

man soldiers who refuse to do what the Government 
suggests, shall have their separation allowances an- 
nulled, and that other women who can not be affected 
in this way, shall be denied the food cards which stand 
between them and starvation if they refuse Government 
work. This simply means that all German women can 
now be legally compelled to do the work of blacksmiths 
or oxen for ten or twelve hours a day. 

The almost negligible minority among us who petu- 
lantly declare they might just as well be under the 
Kaiser when they threaten to strike for "five eight-hour 
days per week, and double-time for Saturdays," would 
do well to bear in mind this gentle German device in 
regard to labour as well as low wages, long hours, and 
machine-gun antidotes for strikes. 

But all this is part of German efficiency. To the 
leaders the war is a material thing; therefore, to neg- 
lect to employ all available material, is something be- 
yond their comprehension. They believe, and have edu' 
cated their people to believe, that everything must be 
done to win the war since Germany's whole future, 
which includes their material happiness, and that of 
their children, is entirely dependent upon the outcome 
of the struggle. In the details given in this chapter and 
in all details connected with the war, the Germans are 
always out to win. 

In this respect my mind goes back to a little inci- 
dent in the retreat from Antwerp. I was wondering 
where, when and how the Belgians could hold up the 
German onslaught, when in the night I came upon little 
knots of men in sailor hats, footsore, confessedly be- 
wildered, but cheery and thoroughly game. These men 
of the British Naval Reserve were some of the best fel- 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 171 

lows I have met during the past four years, but they 
would be the last to assert that they had been in the 
least prepared to hold back the scientific, highly-trained 
army against them. Some of the fragments of conver- 
sation linger with me now, — fragments uttered while 
we stumbled along in the dark before the enemy. 

"So you have been travelling around a bit," said one 
to me. "What is the news about the war ?" The spot- 
light of the interest of the world was focussed on us, but 
such is the complexity of the great struggle that a per- 
spective is not always easy. 

They made no excuses for the fact that they were 
retreating instead of advancing, and they told me in a 
straightforward manner of how the Germans had got 
the best of their particular group. All war was new 
to them, and they spoke only with interest and not with 
reproach. At dawn they saw the enemy advancing un- 
der a white flag. Apparently they did not consider it 
in the least extraordinary that the flag had to be escorted 
by whole companies. At length the Germans substi- 
tuted the red, white and black for the flag of white and 
rushed the fort. Sauve qui peut rang out, and the 
little group escaped. These men somehow reminded me 
of an American college football team after a hard game, 
as they moved along bunched together with their coats 
thrown jauntily over their shoulders like blankets. But 
they had had a first-hand lesson that Germany is not 
playing football or cricket. From first to last she is 
out with the gloves off to win the war, and if she fails, 
it will not be through lack of trying every device of 
science, ingenuity, and trickery on her fronts, behind 
her fronts, and behind her enemies' fronts. 

"Germany simply can't win," I heard one night after 



172 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

my return to New York. "Nineteen nations are at war 
against her," — this said with a tone of finality which 
left me in no doubt of the speaker's opinion that "nine- 
teen to one" was the keynote to success. 

The phenomenon that most important governments of 
the world have broken with Germany, is not only an 
ethical barometer, but it can be turned to practical use. 

For the moment, however, let us consider the mis- 
leading sure-cure prescription of nineteen-to-one — or 
twenty-three according to later score. If we carefully 
count up Siam and Nicaragua among the forces bat- 
tering Germany, is it quite correct to omit those nations 
battling by her side? Austria-Hungary, with eleven 
million more people than France, entered the war with 
an army second only to that of Germany in the com- 
pleteness of its equipment and the definiteness of its 
plan. Are we to leave out of account its vast, natural 
resources and the thundering arsenals of Scoda, which 
rival those of Krupp ? The Bulgars, a hardy-peasant 
soldiery, more than self-sustaining, are tying up and 
inflicting losses upon considerable allied forces in Mace- 
donia — forces which are unavailable for the decisive 
battles in France. Britain's foremost military critic has 
clung to the principle since the beginning that this is 
a war of attrition in which the killing of Germans is 
the prime essential. 

Did the tens of thousands of some of the finest sol- 
diers of the British Empire kill any Germans when they 
went down before the Sultan's armies in the Darda- 
nelles ? Or are British soldiers killing Germans in Pal- 
estine and Mesopotamia ? Then why leave Turkey out 
of the count ? Moreover, Germany continues to get lim- 



SECRET OF GERMAN RESISTANCE 173 

ited supplies of much-needed cotton and wool from the 
Turkish Empire. 

The "one," then, is inaccurate in the nineteen-to-one 
argument. 

What about the nineteen? 

Has each been concentrating every scrap of energy, 
human and material, upon the one purpose of winning 
the war ? That is what Germany and her Prussianised 
allies have been doing. 

In brief, has Germany been fighting all the forces 
that the world might have brought against her, or has 
she been fighting a collection of fractional forces ? 



CHAPTER VII 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 



The cave man met his opponent face to face and 
fought him with his hands, and his feet, and 
his teeth. Less primitive, he fashioned a hammer of 
stone which aided him in the settlement of differences 
of opinion. Later, the spear enabled him to slay before 
his opponent could grapple with him. The arrow in- 
creased the area of com'bat, until along came the man 
with the gun who killed from safe distance the savage 
with the bow. The cannon developed range until aimed 
by intricate mathematical formulae it enables civilised 
man to kill those whom he never knew and never saw. 

As the world becomes increasingly complex, so does 
war. In the beginning, men fought singly, then in 
groups, then in armies, then in whole nations and com- 
binations of nations. War on sea became as important 
as war on land and was united to it. In the third cen- 
tury before Christ, in the first of the three acts of the 
death struggle between Home and Carthage, the Ro- 
mans, confining their operations to land, saw that they 
had no chance of success until they built a fleet to pre- 
vent the enemy's ships harassing their coast. They took 
as a model a Carthaginian ship which was wrecked 
on their shores and built up the fleet that enabled them 
to grapple with the seamen from Africa. 

Had Rome not imitated the superior weapon of her 
174 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 175 

enemy, the history of the world would have been dif- 
ferent So it has been through the ages. In the weap- 
ons of war, one must catch up or go under. For a few 
days the outcome of our Civil War centred largely upon 
the new idea of armouring ships. Had the North con- 
servatively stuck to the wooden variety, the future would 
have been materially altered. That it is not was due 
to the counter-armour device of Ericsson's Monitor. 

In the present war, Germany almost cleared the way 
to the Channel ports by the use of a weapon which she 
had solemnly sworn at the Second Hague Conference oi* 
1907 not to use. Horror and denunciation of her use 
of gas swelled throughout the world. Yet the enemies 
of Germany quickly resorted to it for the simple reason 
that to stick to an agreement which the other fellow had 
violated and thus obtained a tremendous material ad- 
vantage, might result in being worn down and being 
defeated in the field in the long run. 

Germany's guilt in using poisonous gas was not that 
she caused suffering and death, for all war does that; 
but that she broke an agreement. She is first and last 
out to win and is determined to use all her weapons to 
the fullest. We must do likewise. This does not mean 
that we should resort to debasing tactics. We should 
not seek to emulate the cases of the sinking of the Bel- 
gian Prince and the murder of Captain Fryatt. But 
in the nature of this war both sides have certain advan- 
tages. If one side utilises to the fullest its advantages, 
while the other side fails to do so, the latter stands an 
excellent chance to awaken some day to the realisation 
that it has poured out its blood and treasure to little 
purpose; and, too late, to say, "It might have been!" 

We have seen in the last chapter the result of the 



176 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Allies' inability to use their sea weapon to the utmost 
from the very beginning. Let us take two extreme 
cases : First, suppose that all the nations that are and 
have been the enemy of Germany during the past four 
years could have seen that she was an enemy to them 
all and must be beaten. Acting upon this, suppose that 
all of these had immediately jumped in, cut Germany 
off from the outside, and set wholeheartedly to work to 
rain sledge-hammer blows upon her. Under such cir- 
cumstances, even the pan-German fire-eating Count Re- 
ventlow would long ago have admitted that his country 
had not the shadow of a chance. 

Let us now consider the other extreme — the extreme 
which might have happened had the German leaders 
been less drunk with German power, more knowing in 
the psychology of other peoples and consequently less 
ignorant of the limits of intimidation. Suppose that 
Great Britain had continued rigidly to adhere to the 
Declaration of London and Germany had continued her 
importations. There are some who would have said 
that Great Britain had played a good sporting game in 
adhering to the sea rules formulated in 1909. Possibly 
true. But this solace would be a poor substitute for the 
Allied cause which would inevitably have gone down 
to defeat. 

In the fifth year of war, we may look back with re- 
gret that we could not have had the gift of vision to 
have hammered Germany all together. But on the other 
hand, the facts as they are justify us in expectations of 
victory if we use all our weapons to the fullest. We hold 
the cards. All we need do is play them correctly. 

I have seen the food supply diminish in all the war- 
ring nations of Europe. Yet in this respect, I find it 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 177 

highly significant that Germany and Austria were vast- 
ly worse off at the end of the second year of war than 
England and France at the end of the fourth. Although 
Germany's low food line of the third year of war has 
been jacked up sufficiently to prevent it falling much 
further it continues along the frontier between discom- 
fort and defeat. 

Herr Batocki, former Food Controller, and now Gov- 
ernor of the agrarian province of East Prussia, was 
forced to throw light upon the situation in June, 1918, 
when he defended the official methods of distribution. 
He said : 

"The cutting off of Germany from world-trade be- 
comes ever more effective, and this, combined with often 
unfavourable harvest weather in Germany, in the coun- 
tries of our allies, and in the occupied territories, makes 
the system of feeding the Army and the non-agricultural 
population appear as an indispensable emergency 
bridge which, artificially put together, narrow, and 
shaky though it is, provides a way across the abyss of 
destruction. The bridge is supported by three principal 
pillars — bread, potatoes, and corn fodder for the 
horses, needed by the Army and by industry. If one 
of these pillars breaks, Germany will fall into the 
abyss and succumb to the terrible fate which our Anglo- 
Saxon enemies and their vassals have prepared for us. 
Every year the pillars begin, in the last months before 
the harvest, to shake and crack. 

"The first business of the public food control is to 
seize supplies as completely as possible, to prevent all 
unnecessary consumption of food as fodder, and rightly 
to distribute the bread cereals, the fodder cereals, and 
the potatoes during the critical last months of the year, 
so as to prevent the cracking and shaking of the pillars 



178 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

from ending in collapse. Every year thus far we have 
been able to do this, although with great difficulty, and 
we shall be able to go on doing it with the help of God 
and our good sword, which has always at the right time 
— in the Balkans, then in Roumania, and this time by 
the Eastern peace — opened up fresh possibilities of sup- 
ply, although the supplies for the present flow but 
scantily." 

Herr Batocki's remarks, then, officially confirm the 
precarious food conditions I saw in Germany. It is 
clearly evident that the "cracking and shaking of the 
pillars" would indeed have ended in collapse had Ger- 
many really been blockaded from the beginning. As it 
is, however, the partial blockade has reduced her to a 
condition which should afford us hopes of victory and in- 
dicate to us the means of achieving it. 

I deem it of prime importance that more and more 
of Germany's ablest men are seeing with increasing 
clearness the menace of the economic weapon. They 
understand it, for it has been one of their favourites 
in time of peace. In their trade-relations with other 
nations, the Germans practised a policy which they 
called Gegenseitigkeit und Vergeltung, which means 
reciprocity and retaliation. Other nations practised 
"reciprocity," but only Germany, with its unique com- 
bination of science and primitive ideas about intimida- 
tion added "retaliation." The method was painfully 
simple. The country to which Germany made advances 
of reciprocity was not free to accept them or decline 
them. If it did not accept them, it would be punished. 

We find an example of this when Canada adopted 
the principle of the maximum and minimum tariff in 
which Great Britain became entitled to the benefits of 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 179 

the lower tariff. Germany, however, demanded equal 
benefits on the ground of the most favoured nation trea- 
ties. Canada refused to recognise this demand, where- 
upon Germany retaliated by punishing Canadian prod- 
ucts through an increase of duties upon them. But the 
Canadians are an ultra-independent folk and among the 
least likely on the globe to be cowed by German meth- 
ods. They therefore replied by erecting an almost pro- 
hibitive barrier against the products of Germany. This 
caused trade between the two countries to diminish 
nearly to zero, while Canadian-British and Canadian- 
American trade developed rapidly. A stiff upper lip 
and a sufficiency of force will always quell a bully in 
the long run. So when Germany realised that her re- 
taliation policy had driven her wares out of Canadian 
markets without noticeably affecting Canada, she sued 
humbly to negotiate an exchange of products on a fair 
basis. 

We see from this that a pitchfork is a perfectly good 
weapon to use on a bull, and the uttered fears of Ger- 
man commercial leaders reveal that we have a first- 
class pitchfork in the economic weapon. The enemies 
of Germany leagued together control so great a part of 
the world's raw products and so dominate the trade 
routes by sea and land, harbours and coaling stations, 
that they can, if they will act together, so apply the 
economic weapon that Germany simply cannot win. 

This weapon, of course, must not be used singly but in 
conjunction with our other weapons. Some men have 
one panacea; others, another for winning the war. 
Those whose thoughts have never outgrown military 
headgear, are prone to speak only of armies, with some 
of these inclining to one branch, such as the airplane. 



180 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Other critics put all their hope in blockade, others in 
propaganda and still others in the magic cure-all of a 
''gathering around the table." A few who still fail to 
understand the peculiar little ways of Prussian temper- 
ament, or are addicted to something worse, are con- 
vinced that peace might be best brought about if we 
would expose the other cheek to the fist of mail. 

The point is, all weapons are necessary. Take the 
purely military ones, for example. Assuming that the 
armies of either side collapsed, our other weapons would 
be valueless. Therefore, even though neither army 
could win in itself, it must be strong enough to pre- 
vent the other army doing so. For more than four 
years of war, that is precisely what has been happening. 
An army might be weakened from the rear, however, to 
such an extent that it would ultimately succumb. That 
is one aim of the German submarine warfare. It is also 
one aim of our blockade. It is, therefore, conceivable 
that these so-called secondary weapons might in the 
long-run prove the primary ones. 

Blockade not only affects armies, but it affects whole 
nations behind them, — first, materially and from this 
temperamentally. This is a war of exhaustion, and in 
such a war these effects of blockade are of first im- 
portance. 

The one thing that buoys up each side is hope. De- 
prive either of it and the other wins. Hope is the 
greatest boon to the human race. It has saved lives 
and made republics and empires. When we convince 
the German people that further sacrifices and depriva- 
tions are useless, we shall be within sight of peace; 
and conversely, until we do convince them, they will con- 
tinue to be the willing instruments of their leaders. 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 181 

Only during one period of the war thns far has hope 
almost faded from them. That was in the summer 
and autumn of 1916 when food shortage, the break- 
down at Verdun, and the combined attacks ea3t and 
west so shook Germany that her much-vaunted unity was 
threatened- Pessimism was contagious. Everybody 
grumbled. Nobody smiled publicly. A3 I p 
among them I felt like a man standing on a dripping 
landscape with all horizons leaden-hued. At la3t the 
German Government was up against it with it3 own 
people. It played its Hindenburg card, and was suc- 
cessful more through Allied weakness than German 
strength — tremendous as that is. The clouds lifted 
over Eoumania and Russia, and the sustaining sun- 
shine of hope burst forth upon the Central Powers. 

Once more the leaders sought to imbue the people 
with the spirit to hold out and endure anything rather 
than yield. After studying the war on both sides, from 
the beginning I am convinced that the will-to-win will 
be the final determinant. It has been developed in the 
Germans to a high degree through a combination of 
patriotism, delusion, and the horror of the taxation 
burdens consequent upon defeat. 

We can win only if we develop it to an equal and 
even greater extent. We can crack the German people's 
will to win if we but smash their hope to win. When 
that happens, the people may demand something definite 
in the way of peace terms from their leaders. This can 
only be accomplished through a combination of all the 
forces we possess. 

One of these continues to be blockade. Frankly, my 
observations have made me feel that without blockade, 
the Allied armies can not win. With it properly ap- 



182 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

plied, they can not lose. The supplies drawn by the 
enemy from Roumania are confessedly for us a draw- 
back, but only a drawback. Even neglecting them, 
however, we are certain in time to exhaust Germany 
now that we have her cut off from the seas in the West 
if, we can prevent her utilising Russia for supplies. 
Not only "after the war," but winning this war depends 
largely upon our success in Russia in the blockade 
sense. If we do not find it feasible to send armies, we 
can at least send "educators," — not the kind that go 
about in silk hats and frock coats — to convince spirits 
grown restive under German domination of the desir- 
ability of interfering with lines of communication and 
otherwise obstructing the movement of products west- 
ward. 

The economic weapon as a bargaining implement is 
blockade carried to the peace conference. Right here 
bobs up a difficulty. In using any weapon of war, the 
Allies have been thus far not so firmly cemented to- 
gether as our enemies. The latter know this perfectly 
well and will seek in the future, even more than they 
have done in the past, to take advantage of it. 

They fear the economic weapon and are getting ready 
to meet it. Well-informed Germans see themselves up 
against two problems : 

1. To get raw materials after the war. 

2. To provide the ships to bring them home. 

Until late in 1916 the Germans were extremely opti- 
mistic on the after-war shipping problem. In their 
minds they would obtain an immediate advantage at 
the close of a war during which they slaughtered enemy 
and neutral shipping while they continued their own 
building. Two things, however, have interfered with 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 183 

this delightful programme for getting the jump on the 
rest of the world. First, Hindenburg's comb-out, plus 
increased U-boat construction, greatly reduced building 
for after the war; second, the entrance of the United 
States and Brazil. 

Before the war, Germany's mercantile marine com- 
prised 5,200,000 gross tonnage. Of this more than 
2,000,000 tons have been sunk or are in the hands of 
her enemies, while upwards of 1,000,000 tons are locked 
up in the ports of her allies or those of neutrals, mostly 
in the latter. 

My observations at German shipping centres lead me 
to place the total of her merchant shipping completed 
since the outbreak of war at 380,000 tons. Adding 
this to that in her own ports and those of her allies, 
plus that taken in the Black sea, she has only half of 
her pre-war amount ready at hand. Paraphrasing a 
one-time popular song, this can be "all steamed up and 
have no place to go." We should keep this little para- 
phrase in mind, for it is one of the high trumps among 
our weapons, and we should play it with the rest. 

As I have previously remarked, however, the Ger- 
man leaders are a determined set of men. Realising 
the plight of their shipping and modern Germany's de- 
pendence upon it, they have formulated scheme after 
scheme to put it on its feet again. Their latest plan is 
for the Government to make direct grants to the ship 
owners which will enable them to replace what they 
have lost. In return for these direct subsidies, which 
will never be repaid, the Government reserves a claim 
to any indemnification which might be obtained from 
foreign countries and to regulate the uses to which 
ships shall be put. Subsidised ships may not be sold 



184 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

to aliens during a period of ten years after they are 
put in commission, nor may any chartering or freight 
contracts affecting such ships he concluded with aliens 
for ten years without government permit. In order to 
speed up construction, the subsidies will be on a sliding 
scale. They may amount to from 60 to 80 per cent of 
the peace value if the ship is put in commission three 
years after the conclusion of peace, with a decline to 
20 per cent in the tenth year. 

Even more than shipping, however, the raw materials 
question is bothering the Germans. In order to present 
a solid front at the peace negotiations in this matter, 
they began systematically soon after the beginning of 
their great spring offensive of 1918 to bring together 
in liability companies the whole industrial, commercial, 
financial, and shipping forces of the Empire. 

At this point it is useful to go back a little to those 
years preceding the war when Germany was filled with 
discussion on colonial expansion. At that time, Paul 
Rohrbach, one of her leading economists and a bril- 
liantly clear thinker, said in connection with peaceful 
penetration : 

"Our land and climate, under conditions that will 
continue as far as one can foresee, allow the production 
of cereals for some 40,000,000 people. Hence, in a few 
years, it will be necessary to buy bread from abroad, not 
to the extent of one-sixth or one-fifth as now, but of 
nearly one-half. 

"Whoever buys from abroad must give back in return 
either money or goods. But we do not possess a single 
commodity which we can produce in such quantities that 
it can be an equivalent for this foreign bread. We have 
neither precious metals in great abundance nor valuable 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 185 

plants, nor coal, iron, and ores in superfluity. Further- 
more, we have hardly any of the raw materials neces- 
sary for our industry in adequate quantities at home. 
We import iron, copper, wool and flax; we do not pos- 
sess a single fibre of cotton or silk, not to speak of 
less needful stuffs. 

"The only way of purchasing food from abroad for 
our surplus population is by importing raw materials, 
multiplying their value by the process of manufacture, 
and then paying other nations who need our product 
with this increased value which our labour has given 
to the original material. 

"We must resign ourselves to the fact that there is 
no possibility of acquiring colonies suitable for emigra- 
tion.* But if we can not have such colonies, it by no 
means follows that we can not obtain the advantages 
which make these colonies desirable. It is a mistake 
to regard the mere possession of trans-oceanic terri- 
tories, even when they are able to absorb the national 
surplus of population, as necessarily a direct increase 
of power. Australia, Canada, and South Africa do 
not increase the power of the Mother Country because 
they are British possessions, nor even because a few 
million British live in them, but because by the trade 
with them, the wealth and with it the defensive strength 
of the Mother Country is increased. 

"Colonies which do not produce such a result have 
but little value; and countries which possess this im- 
portance for a nation, even though they are not its 

* This was written, of course, before the war. When. I asked 
the pan-German Reichstag member, Herr Streseinann, shortly 
before the break with America, whether Germany expected her 
colonies back again, he replied: 

'"We expect colonies, but not the same ones. There will un- 
doubtedly be a juggling about of the world map. For emigration 
we shall demand the Baltic provinces of Russia, Algeria and part 
of Morocco from France, and possibly Tripoli from Italy." 



i86 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

colonies, are in this decisive point a substitute for 
colonial possessions in the ordinary sense." 

In November, 1917, Professor Forster of Munich, 
replying to the annexationist demands of Admiral von 
Tirpitz, sounds almost the same key that Eohrbach 
sounded years ago. Professor Forster said: "Assum- 
ing even that we conquered all Italy and all Russia, 
and in addition to Belgium held the whole of the north 
of France as an economic indemnity and as a base 
against England, how would all that help us to rebuild 
our world industry, which is entirely dependent upon 
the gigantic markets of Pan- America and of the British 
World-Empire ? 

"It is by being carried upon the back of the British 
World-Empire that we have acquired our greatest 
riches; only by the help of our gigantic export could 
we pay for our indispensable raw materials — for ex- 
ample, for the wool which we imported from England 
to the value of about $87,500,000 a year. 

"The fundamental miscalculation of our might school 
of politicians is that they do not appreciate the simple 
truth that there are two parties to all exportation, and 
that no explosives in the world can enable us to compel 
a man or a woman in Manchester, Montreal, Chicago, 
Cairo, or Buenos Aires, to buy a single pair of stockings 
from Chemnitz. If people's hearts are closed to us, 
their warehouses are closed to us also." 

Professor Forster explains that he is not discussing 
the dangers of an official boycott. His argument is that 
the boycott of public opinion is infinitely worse. Some 
of his countrymen, however, do fear the official boy- 
cott, among them Herr Eduard Dettmann, a retired 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 187 

consul. When presenting his views to his Government 
in March, 1918, he declared emphatically: 

"For our salvation we can not too clearly realise that 
the danger of a raw material boycott is extremely seri- 
ous." 

He then reviewed the whole field of German trade, 
and, after expressing pessimistic views about German 
dependence upon her enemies for cotton, wool and cop- 
per added that she was equally dependent upon British 
India for jute, upon India and Brazil for rubber, upon 
the Argentine for hides, upon Bolivia for tin, and for 
other enemy and near-enemy sources for palm oils, cocoa 
and manganese ores. On the other hand, developments 
in the East had diminished German anxiety about 
petroleum, and Germany was also less dependent upon 
Chili for nitrates owing to the development of her new 
nitrogen industry. She might also get a sufficiency of 
manganese to harden her steel from Russia. 

After stating that Germany's stoppage of her export 
of dyes and drugs had only resulted in the stimulation 
of foreign competition in these lines for the future, and 
that the only available German economic weapon would 
be a veto upon the export of potash, he concluded, with 
a significance that we should not fail to grasp : 

"We need the open door; otherwise our industry will 
perish. Consequently it is absolutely necessary to push 
the raw materials question into the peace negotiations 
and to make it one of the most important questions. 
The peace must be such as to bind the Entente Govern- 
ments to exercise no influence, direct or indirect, to the 
injury of our raw materials requirements." 

Herr Dettmann suggested that Germany should play 
the Allies against one another. America for example 



188 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

should be told that she can not have potash, unless she 
agrees to let Germany have a sufficient supply of cotton 
and rubber. Then, "when America is ready to negoti- 
ate," her influence must be exerted upon England to 
obtain Australian wool for Germany. In like manner, 
Australia's interest in maintaining her German market 
for wool, must be exploited and Germany must refuse 
— even at the cost of self-denial — to import Brazilian 
coffee before Brazil supplies the necessary rubber. 

We see then the economic dangers which Germany 
fears and how she may try to circumvent them. We 
possess the tremendous advantage over our enemies of 
the economic weapon, and it would be criminal negli- 
gence toward the men who are risking their lives in our 
cause if we fail to apply it to the utmost. Spasmodic 
attempts by individual nations to use this weapon later 
would be of little use. That would mean the undesir- 
able kind of u war-after-the-war." Such desultory tac- 
tics, moreover, would be ineffective inasmuch as the 
old trade rivalry would spring up between individuals 
and between nations ; and Germany, if her present sys- 
tem continued, could subtly play one against the other. 

We shall not need any "war-aft er-the-war" if we 
quickly develop during the war a unity of economic ac- 
tion just as we have developed unity of military ac- 
tion. If we do this, the fact that some twenty-three 
nations are opposed to Germany, will have proper sig- 
nificance. In this there is almost unlimited scope for 
the highest talents of statesmanship the Allies possess. 
If we can weld together the countries fighting Ger- 
many into an indissoluble unit to stand right through 
the war and right up through the last hour of the peace 
conference, in refusing Germany all the raw products 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 189 

they control and permission to sail her ships, she will 
be up against a barrier she cannot pass. But there is 
no use in one nation or two nations merely talking 
about this. We have got to make a definite, concrete 
agreement that will impress every German. 

But this is a war of "If s," in the sense that every 
move depends upon certain other moves. The economic 
threat, for example, would not wholly succeed unless 
we solve the U-boat menace to the extent that we are 
certain to create more new tonnage than is destroyed. 

I once asked Sir Thomas Lipton, who is a self-made 
man, what he considered to be the keynote of achieve- 
ment. 

"First make up your mind," said Sir Thomas, 
"whether you really want what you think you want. 
If you decide that you do, and it is worth while, con- 
centrate all your energies upon it and do your damnedest 
until you get it." 

Sir Thomas is right. As with individuals, so with 
nations. The first essential for victory over Germany 
is for us to make up our minds that playing the game 
fair, we are going to go the limit to achieve it. Hav- 
ing done this, we must look to all the weapons which we 
possess and can develop, and make full use of every 
one of them. In this most complex of struggles, these 
weapons, depending the one upon the other, are: 

1. To increase our armies from the successful de- 
fensive stage to the successful offensive stage. This 
means increase of material as well as troop numbers. 
After thorough preparation there is no reason why air- 
craft and navies should not render smashing service in 
co-operation with land attacks. 

2. Tighten the blockade to the utmost. In this 



190 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Russia is the weak link. It can conceivably prove the 
fatal link for us. We must use every ingenuity to pre- 
vent Russian supplies going to Germany. With the 
economic line of our enemies running along the edge of 
a precipice year after year, anything moving it either 
way may be decisive. But we must recognize essential 
facts and meet them. The Bolshevist Government is 
an enemy and must be treated as such. The increasing 
troubles of that regime are causing Germany great 
anxiety. As Paul Rohrbach says in Deutsche Politik, 
Germany's best economic organ: 

"For the present there is no greater interest in the 
East then maintaining Bolshevism. The Bolshevists 
are ruining Great Russia and we ought to do everything 
in order that they may continue activities which are 
so profitable for us. The Bolshevists themselves believe 
that they are the salvation, not only of Russia, but of 
the world. That is the very best creed that we can 
want — provided that it remains confined to Great Rus- 
sia. Great Russia for the Bolshevists and the Bolshe- 
vists for us ! Let us preserve the situation and we shall 
earn the gratitude of the Bolshevists and the profits 
for Germany." 

The Allies must get rid of the Bolshevists and seal 
up Russia against Germany. Then the chain around 
her will choke her into submission. 

3. Propaganda. We must conduct this in the first 
place to prevent Germany weakening our will to win, 
and, secondly, to enlighten into disorganisation all pos- 
sible discordant elements among our enemies. 

4. Building up the economic weapon to a degree 
which will enable us to bring its full application to bear 
upon Germany to enforce our just demands. It is the 



THE DECISIVE WEAPON 191 

decisive weapon in the sense that it can ram home to 
the German people the necessary truth that the only 
way in which they can get out into the world of busi- 
ness again is to acknowledge their wrong and treat with 
the Allies in a spirit of fairness and not a spirit of 
Deutschland iiber alles. 



CHAPTER VIII 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 



So you tried to escape last night, did you ?" 
"No, sir, I didn't!" 

The Prussian captain, his arms folded across his 
chest, his whole manner domineering, his mouth dis- 
torted into a sneer, looked contemptuously at the Brit- 
ish prisoner whom he had singled out. 

"There is no use denying it," he sneered. "We know 
all about it." 

"But I insist, sir, that I did not try to escape." 

"That will do for you in the way of denials. You 
got frightened and backed out because we nipped your 
plan which we knew all about. How did we know all 
about it, you may wonder? Well, I'll tell you — your 
French comrades gave you away. I suppose they grew 
faint-hearted and decided to seek favour with us by 
divulging everything." 

"But J. insist, sir," said the Englishman, "that there 
must be a mistake." 

"No more excuses," thundered the captain. Then 
he turned to the guard, drawn up with bayoneted rifles. 
"Take him to the guard-house," he commanded. "He 
will be shown that we Germans stand no nonsense." 

Thus a British Tommy, far from home and in the 
hands of the enemy, turned away bewildered — his only 
plausible explanation to himself being that some of 

192 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 193 

the French in the camp had lied in order to curry favour 
with the Germans. Naturally, under the hardships of 
solitary confinement, this thought would breed a re- 
sentment against everything French. 

But the morning work of the Prussian captain, a 
skilled linguist, had only begun. His next duty was 
to single out a French prisoner. "Hm! you poor mis- 
guided fool!" he began. "So you have tried to es- 
cape !" 

The Frenchman naturally looked amazed. "But no, 
my Captain. There must be a mistake. I have not 
tried to escape." 

"In a way I'm sorry for you and for the rest of your 
countrymen. But you would play the part of the fool. 
You would be pushed into the war by England to play 
her game, to suffer and bleed for her. She only wanted 
to use you. And now, after you're in, the English show 
the falseness which has always been a national trait 
with them. That's why we know of your attempt to 
escape. We discovered your English companion in the 
act; and when we questioned him, he broke down and 
gave the whole thing away. He showed how it was 
you who originated the whole plan. I am sorry for 
you, but in Prussia, justice is justice, and you have 
got to take your punishment. Lead him away!" 

And the little poilu, who had perhaps never spoken 
with an Englishman in his life, his mind perplexed, 
could tug his heart strings against England. Some day 
he would return to his beloved France where he could 
tell any friends that the war had left, and his wife 
and his children, of the treachery of an ally. Like- 
wise, back to England, might a British soldier carry 



194 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

and transmit the poison that had stabbed his heart in 
a Prussian prison camp. 

I learned of the incident narrated above from a Ger- 
man soldier eye-witness who had had the misfortune not 
to have become naturalised during his eight year resi- 
dence in America. He happened to be visiting relatives 
in the Fatherland when he was enmeshed in the drag- 
net. His one hope is to return some day to the United 
States, where he intends to make his home and turn 
his back on Kaiserism forever. 

I found plenty of evidence in Germany that this 
method of sowing dissension among prisoners was 
widely repeated, with variations. No detail in the 
plan for world-domination is considered too trifling 
to be ignored. No act is too low for the German lead- 
ers, if they believe it will help them to secure this 
domination. 

Germany utilised her great prisoners' camps to build 
up the propaganda artillery with which she battered 
Russia, the notorious General Friedrich being given 
command of this highly important campaign work. 
His first step was to single out 50,000 Ukrainian pris- 
oners for special treatment. These were told that they 
would have an easier lot than the Poles and other fel- 
low-prisoners. Most of them could not even read and 
write their own tongue; but in Germany they were 
taught not only to read and write Russian, but also, to 
some extent, German. Like the schoolboy brought up 
on German text-books in America, they could read about 
the good things in Germany and of what a kindly and 
wonderful man is William the Second and all his an- 
cestors. 

This was done so that, as General Friedrich him- 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 195 

self said, "they might go back to their own country 
to spread the truth about Germany." But German in- 
struction is a rigorous thing, and therefore General 
Friedrich thought it best to send it on its mission thor- 
oughly armed. So the selected prisoners went home 
with plenty of guns and ammunition. 

But the thorough General went even further and 
started to organise an army. Even the semi-official 
Wolff telegraph bureau unwittingly added proof to this 
on February 22, 1918, when it said: 

"The foundations of the Ukrainian national army are 
being laid in the Kovel district. The first Ukraine 
division, whose officers are Staff officers and whose men 
are former prisoners of war, is already in training. 
Officers and men, wearing the old historic uniform of 
the Ukrainian Cossacks — long blue coats and white-grey 
caps — make the best possible impression. The morale 
and appearance of these soldiers, who come straight 
out of the German prisoners' camps, are the best tribute 
to the treatment of prisoners of war in Germany." 

How many people throughout the world would be 
duped by such a paragraph as this ? The history of the 
past shows us that a great many would be. They would 
feel that, after all, here is evidence of good conditions 
among prisoners in Germany. How many people would 
see that it was merely another injection of German 
poison? Comparatively few, but happily the number 
is growing rapidly. 

Though the official Wolff telegraph bureau keeps the 
well-read German population thoroughly "informed" 
about each day's events, it does not reach the greater 
part of the undeveloped Turkish Empire. The German 
leaders, however, did not let such an obstacle stand in 



196 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

the way of enlightening the remote masses of their 
Turkish allies. 

When the British withdrew from Gallipoli, the Ger- 
man military managers of Turkey organised bands of 
runners to spread the joyous tidings to the utmost re- 
cesses of Asia Minor. The runners worked in relays, 
after the manner of the bearers of the Fiery Cross in 
Scott's "Lady of the Lake." After Townsend's sur- 
render at Kut, the runners were again dispatched; 
for it is part of German policy to kill British prestige 
throughout Asia. Happily, since the fall of Kut, these 
Turkish marathoners have had plenty of opportunity to 
enjoy a well-earned rest. 

Regarding German influence in Asia, Count Revent- 
low says: "An anarchistic India would be far more ad- 
vantageous to German interests than an India which 
remains under British supremacy. A liberated India 
would be best for Germany and for India, too. But 
until that kind of an India can be established, the next 
best thing is the creation and maintenance of chronic 
unrest and disorder." 

In the stirring events of the war obscure happen- 
ings in Belgium attract but little attention. The Ger- 
mans, however, are working minutely upon a plan to 
disrupt that already mutilated land so that, in case 
they can not hold it, they can at least play its disrup- 
tion to their advantage at the Peace Conference. Bel- 
gium and Switzerland have been two extraordinary 
little nations in the sense that they are made up of races 
which in the great countries about them have been hos- 
tile to one another, but in these small countries have 
lived together amicably and have developed truly na- 
tional aspirations. 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 197 

In Belgium the Walloons are racially akin to the 
French and the Flemings to the Germans; and Ger- 
many, with her highly-developed hypocrisy, is seeking 
to make use of this fact by encouraging " independence' 7 
among the Flemings. Once more the German weapon of 
"learning" has been brought into play, and an ex- 
change-professor system inaugurated. Later the "Coun- 
cil of Flanders" was organised, made up of over two 
hundred so-called "trustworthy delegates." This Coun- 
cil was ceremoniously received by von Bethmann-Holl- 
weg, then Imperial Chancellor, who promised, "We 
shall promote the Flemish movement in every possible 
way at the moment of negotiations for peace and after- 
wards." 

In March, 1917, the German Government divided 
Belgium into two parts for administrative purposes, 
making Brussels the headquarters of Flanders which 
includes the provinces of East Flanders, West Flan- 
ders, Limbourg and Antwerp, with the districts of 
Brussels and Louvain; and making Namur the head- 
quarters of the provinces of Luxembourg, Liege, Hai- 
nault, and Nivelle. In general the people of the first 
part are less harshly treated than those of the second. 

The rank and file of the German troops are being 
used to widen the breach between the two Belgiums. 
In order to impress the natives, the soldiers are for- 
bidden to speak French, unless absolutely necessary, 
and encouraged to learn and speak Flemish. Imagine 
any other nation going into such details! Keep these 
things in mind, however, when your neighbour tells you 
what a wonderful people the Germans must be in order 
to stand up against the world. 

Early in 1918 Germany completed the arrange- 



198 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ments which she hopes will permit her to go to the 
Peace Conference with a trump Belgian card up her 
sleeve, namely, that Flanders has legally declared it- 
self independent under the protection of the German 
Empire. 

The Germans believe in doing things "legally," 
which makes it all the more necessary that they be 
closely watched in every move that they make. There- 
fore they staged the show with a first-act reception to a 
picked delegation from the picked "Council of Flan- 
ders," which was received with pomp at Brussels on 
January 15, 1918, by Herr Walheraff, the German Im- 
perial Secretary of State for the Interior, who was for- 
mer Burgomaster of Cologne. A love feast followed, a 
sumptuous banquet at which food tickets were not 
needed, and on January 20, 1918, Germany could pro- 
claim that the "Council of Flanders" had "solemnly 
and unanimously resolved upon the complete indepen- 
dence of Flanders." 

One might suppose that the absence of the most im- 
portant leaders of Belgian life from a body of dele- 
gates elected at "packed" polling, which was partici- 
pated in by only a small minority of the population un- 
der the auspices of spiked helmets and bayonets, might 
prove a disconcerting omission. But apparently it does 
not greatly disturb the German leaders who intend to 
bring to the Peace Conference their basic policy of 
divide and destroy. 

The war-time measures described thus far in this 
chapter are but superstructure reared upon a founda- 
tion built by the Germans in peace to enable them to 
control other countries by quiet penetration. Their 
system of government, with its central control in the 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 199 

linking up of politics with banking, trade, and pub- 
licity, enabled them to erect this foundation, whose 
broad features, as applied to all countries, were these: 

1. Central organising in Berlin. 

2. Ascertaining to what extent the average busi- 
ness man in other countries was ignorant of interna- 
tional politics, with the consequent playing to the limit 
such ignorance. 

3. Setting apart a fund to enable German chemists 
and engineers to work abroad so cheaply that they 
could crowd other labour out of the market and thus 
learn the secrets of foreign competitors. 

4. By home methods of greater manufacturing ef- 
ficiency, longer hours and lower wages, and superior 
and higher organisation and preferential transportation 
rates, the German manufacturer, — having obtained the 
other man's secrets, — could frequently drive him to the 
wall. 

5. Investing German capital with native capital 
abroad and withdrawing it to put it in something else, 
after the undertaking had proved successful. The man- 
agement would usually remain in German hands, how- 
ever. 

6. Slipping on the cloak of naturalisation. 

7. The trade wedge successfully driven, the central 
organisation in Berlin, i.e., the German Government, 
would then enter politics and buy up as much as pos- 
sible of parliaments and the press. The Germans 
found ways to buy men, to be sure, so that many of the 
purchased never even suspected that they had been for 
sale. 

There were two countries in Europe which became 
especially saturated with Germanism before the war. 



200 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

One of these was Russia; the other, Italy. With re- 
gard to the latter, the fortune of international diplo- 
macy played into the German hands. 

In 1893 the Italian heir to the throne happened to 
attend the German manoeuvres at Metz, an act which 
caused such resentment in France that she liquidated 
a billion francs in Italian securities. This created a 
panic in Italy. That gave Germany her golden op- 
portunity, which she was quick to seize. Within two 
years Berlin bankers had founded what was destined 
quickly to become Italy's most powerful bank, the 
Banco Commerciale, with headquarters at Milan and 
branches throughout Italy and the world. 

The Banco Commerciale was started in 1895 with 
a capital of only $1,000,000, but before the war it 
had increased to $31,000,000. It is significant that 
though only $750,000 of the capital stock remained in 
German hands, the whole policy of the Bank was di- 
rected from Berlin and its power used in the interests 
of Pan-Germanism. 

The Bank once established, Germany was ready to 
rear her influence upon the foundation whose seven 
general features have been described above. The Bank 
used its colossal power to push the sales of German 
products with the double object of excluding from the 
^Italian market goods coming from other countries and 
of preventing any great expansion of Italian indus- 
tries. If an Italian firm, in need of new machinery, 
or other material, should venture after these in open 
market, a persuasive "recommendation" from the 
Bank would almost invariably be received, urging it 
to select a German product bought from a German firm 
or a firm with German connections. Otherwise the 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 201 

Italian firm would find its credit cut off, and would be 
driven to ruin. 

Through the Bank Berlin tightened its strangle hold 
on the Italian press. Each corporation controlled by 
the Bank was induced to subscribe to a stipulated 
amount of stock in a designated newspaper or periodical 
— which subscription would, of course, influence the 
editorial side of the paper. The newspapers, further- 
more, received regular subsidies, generally in the form 
of advertising contracts and advertisements of the in- 
dustries of their region. (This method is similar to 
that increasingly employed by the Krupps in Germany, 
Chapter V.) 

The wires were now laid to sway Italian ideas 
through the bank which Berlin controlled in Italy and 
which in turn dominated the industrial life of the 
country. 

From the press to politics became the next logical 
step, and thence from politics to things military. Even 
the electric power plants were controlled by Germans, 
which made it necessary for their engineers to be ad- 
mitted everywhere even to the most closely-guarded for- 
tifications. In the province of Venetia, along the Aus- 
trian frontier, over 97 per cent of the electric power was 
in Teuton hands. 

All this peaceful penetration was so unobtrusive and 
insidious that most Italians never realised its exist- 
ence. Jndeed, the upper classes, both in politics and 
in commerce, were educated to admire Germany and 
the Germans. 

Thus was the ground harrowed for the German seed 
of propaganda during the war. Politicians in Eome 
continued to play the petty politics of party intrigue, 



202 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

not because in most cases they wished deliberately to 
wreck their country, but because like petty politicians 
the world over, as distinguished from constructive 
statesmen, they had devoted their lives to clique machi- 
nations to such an extent that they had no time thor- 
oughly to grasp great national and international is- 
sues. 

Disaffection at Rome spread to the war zone, and 
part of the army became affected for reasons which may 
be grouped under the following heads: 

1. The Italian statesmen had not stated clearly to 
the people their reasons for their participation in the 
war. 

2. The troops grew stale because they were not 
moved from place to place to the extent of some other 
armies. 

3. Leave was too infrequent. 

4. Rations had been reduced. 

Germany scientifically tapped the Italian line to 
find the chief points of dissatisfaction. She found an 
important one on the Isonzo near Monte Nero, which 
happened to be highly strategic, whereupon she set to 
work in her painstaking way. German and Austrian 
officers and a few Bulgarian officers who had been edu- 
cated in Italy, were enabled, after fraternisation had 
set in, to pay nightly visits to the Italian trenches where 
they talked of the hardships of war and the charms of 
peace. "Would it not be well," they suggested, "to 
end all these hardships ?" "It would only be necessary 
for both sides to go home. Then peace would come 
automatically. If our officers try to stop us, we can 
shoot them." 

These whisperings progressed so favourably that the 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 203 

visiting officers set October 24, 1917, as the day for 
the general home-going. Dawn broke with the Italians 
in peaceful mood, but the Germans had massed six 
of their crack divisions opposite Monte Nero, with the 
result that a wedge was driven into the Italian posi- 
tions. The reserves behind Monte Nero, based upon 
the town of Caporetto — which gives the disaster its 
name — were ordered to fill the gap, but they refused to 
fight. 

Then the heart-rending realisation of troops to the 
right and the left of the break, that the heights which 
they had stormed and upon which so many of their 
comrades had poured out their blood must be aban- 
doned without firing a gun ; the toil of months and 
years in blazing sun and bitter cold, miles of galleries 
blasted through solid rock, gun positions on almost in- 
accessible peaks, newly constructed roads, supplies — 
all wiped out because a few troops somewhere in the 
line had trusted in German talk and had left a fatal 
gap. 

On a few winding roads it was impossible to bring 
back rapidly great armies which had gone up slowly, 
whole units were isolated on lofty mountains and more 
units hopelessly choked in narrow valleys, with no near 
line upon which to fall. ,It was inevitable that the loss 
of men and material should be enormous. Though some 
troops broke, the majority struggled every step of the 
way to save a complete collapse. Of particular merit 
was the accomplishment of an Italian artillery com- 
mander, who, with tenacity and skill, brought his forty- 
three batteries down two thousand feet to the Isonzo, 
then up two thousand feet on the other side, then forty 
nerve-racking miles across country, with the enemy 



204 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

always on his heels, until he reached the swollen, tem- 
pestuous Tagliamento River near Codroipo. Once 
across the river, his guns would be reasonably safe, but 
as he reached it, a dull boom shook the bank and a 
cloud of flying debris rose and splashed back into the 
stream. Some one had blundered. The bridge mine 
had been fired too soon. 

On the line of the Piave, I witnessed what was prob- 
ably one of the most rapid transformations of history. 
In three weeks the Italians had lost a third of their 
active forces; yet the remainder, apparently disorgan- 
ised, turned at bay and stubbornly contested every inch 
of the ground. On the plateau, between the Brenta and 
Piave, they were like a football team inside its own five- 
yard line, — and they held. The last half of November 
and December passed with the enemy unable to make 
further gains. So, guns failing, he switched once more 
to the smile that lures to ruin. 

On Christmas morning, just before dawn, I went 
through the communicating trenches to the front line 
near Zenson. The light had only broken when the 
enemy began the day in a most cordial manner. He 
had almost wrecked Italy two months before by an ex- 
cessive cordiality, and apparently he is no believer in 
Abraham Lincoln's philosophy on "fooling all of the 
people all of the time." So he hoisted a large placard 
on which was printed: 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 
LET US BE BROTHERS! 

Recent history was sufficiently painful in the minds 
of the Italians, however, to prevent them reciprocating 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 205 

in kind. On the other hand, they did no firing, and 
the day settled down to a stillness suggesting that of a 
New England village on the Sabbath. Apparently 
Christmas is Christmas, and both sides seemed to en- 
joy a day off from being killed. 

The Austrians, however, were fairly bubbling with 
friendliness — according to plan. Persistent, they 
openly suggested fraternisation and even went to the 
extent of announcing by placard that the Russians had 
thrown off the chains of their rulers and had gone home 
happy. The moral which the Italians were expected 
to draw is, of course, obvious. 

About half-past three, two Italian officers came into 
the trench and expressed their opinion that the Aus- 
trians would, under no circumstances, start fighting, 
inasmuch as they clearly intended to use Christmas 
as the ideal day to start another "friendliness" offen- 
sive. To support this opinion, one of them stood on the 
firing step and put his head over the parapet for a look 
at the river scenery just below us. "We would not do 
this yesterday," the first explained, "nor would we do 
it to-morrow. But to-day is perfectly safe." 

I did not share their baby blue-eyed faith, but of 
course it was up to me to join them. We were within 
easy range, as the river here was only about a hundred 
yards wide. But the enemy would not even snipe that 
day. So we stepped back safely into the trench, which 
had taken on a somewhat careless attitude. 

At half-past four the curtain was rung up on an 
entirely different act, without even a placard to an- 
nounce the change of bill. The opposite bank shook 
with electrifying suddenness; trench mortars and all 
calibres up to the nine-inch belched all along the line. 



206 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Some of us escaped into dugouts, while the trenches 
above were torn and shattered on every side. The Ital- 
ians who but a few minutes before had been lulled into 
dreams of home under the belief that Christmas would 
pass peacefully, were tricked once more and went down 
to death to mingle in many cases their shredded flesh 
with the blood-soaked muck below the duck-boards. 

Once again I had been brought face to face with 
the hard cold fact that to accept the hand held out by 
the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs is not chivalry 
but suicide. 

While in Germany I poignantly realised that the 
poison which was sapping Italy and Russia, was being 
injected a hundred-fold into the life-blood of the United 
States ... a realisation which kept me awake many 
an hour at night. I was well aware that the over- 
whelming majority of my countrymen had never inter- 
ested themselves in European affairs, were remote from 
the conflict, and were ever ready to welcome the stranger 
and believe in him. 

Most people's lives are pretty much occupied with 
the routine of making a living, so that the farmer or 
manufacturer, storekeeper or office assistant, busy with 
his daily tasks in Turner's Falls, Omaha or New York, 
must inevitably form most of his opinions from what he 
reads. Consequently, if the German Government han- 
dles visiting press representatives in a way to put them 
in a mood to see what is shown and to let alone what 
is out of sight, it can, through them, influence Tur- 
ner's Falls, Omaha and New York. In short, if it 
could keep us chloroformed while it was winning in 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 207 

Europe, it could then comfortably turn its attention to 
the "western hemisphere. 

It was common knowledge in some circles in Berlin 
that the correspondent of a leading American news- 
paper used to express the ardent hope that he might 
earn a German war decoration. Another war corre- 
spondent admitted that he hoped to settle down in Ber- 
lin after the war, and that if his war-reporting was sat- 
isfactory to the Wilhelmstrasse, he would probably be 
on the inside for big scoops later in peace. That was 
all very well for these men personally. But was the 
plain American citizen back in Turner's Falls, Omaha 
and New York getting a square deal ? 

After ,1 had become thoroughly convinced of the 
Imperial Government's moral dereliction in the world 
of to-day, and of her menace to the future of my own 
country, I resolved to act and told Ambassador Gerard 
of my resolution. That is why, after I had managed to 
get out of Germany, I deliberately wrote an article in 
the London Times, for wide syndication in American 
newspapers, in which I gave details of how American 
correspondents were shackled in Berlin. I expected 
the article to create a sensation. It certainly did. I 
showed it to an American journalistic friend in Lon- 
don before it went to press. "It's hot stuff," he ad- 
mitted, "and very much needed. But J wouldn't sign 
my name to it for $50,000. You will find yourself 
heavily attacked by the men you mention — men who 
will be backed by gigantic influence." 

The highly-organised attack which soon developed, 
was directed from Berlin by William Bayard Hale > 
German-America's super-Ambassador to the German 
court, and apologist-in-chief for the Fatherland in the 



208 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

United States. Incidentally, Hale is the man who 
wrote Dernberg's justification of the sinking of the 
Lusitania, as revealed in Federal investigations of the 
Kaiser's purchase of the New York Evening Mail. 
Working with him on the one hand, were the "spoon- 
fed" among the correspondents; on the other, the Im- 
perial Government with all its wireless and all its re- 
sources ; while co-operating with all these were the three 
American newspaper men in London who represented 
the same papers represented in Berlin by the men to 
whom I had devoted special attention. The customary 
method of attempting to discredit the accuser was 
widely resorted to — the same method now being em- 
ployed in Germany against Prince Lichnowsky and 
Herr Miihlon. The idea of having some of the cabled 
fiction pertaining to me bear the London label at the 
top of the column was rather clever. My peculiar ad- 
vantage in the fight, however, is that I dealt only in 
facts — and time is the ally of facts. 

I regret to introduce matters so personal to myself, 
but I do so because they are illuminative of funda- 
mentals. The war will be won or lost through the ideas 
of the peoples and not by mere commands of sovereigns. 
Actions spring from ideas. That is why publicity that 
shapes opinion is so powerful that within the next few 
years it can fashion the future of mankind. 

There is a multitude of recent evidence to show that 
it is German intention not to diminish propaganda but 
to increase it. A combination of some hundreds of the 
most important Hamburg firms presented a programme 
to the Imperial Chancellor in June, 1918, which shows 
the part to be played by the influencing of public 
opinion abroad in their effort to recoup their fallen for- 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 209 

tunes. After proposing a more intensive organisation 
of the diplomatic and consular service the programme 
continues : 



"A reformation of our foreign service is useless un- 
less there is also a change of our foreign policy. It must 
correspond with Germany's position as a world-power, 
and above all things it must assume and guarantee the 
protection of Germans abroad and their rights. The 
proper consideration must be given to the influencing 
of public opinion abroad. 

"The diplomatist must above all cultivate good rela- 
tions with the Press of the country in which he resides. 
The Empire must grant him adequate credits for ful- 
filling his tasks. 

"It is the business of the News Department to conduct 
the propaganda service in foreign countries in German 
economic and political interests. Its main task is to be 
in touch with the Press at home and abroad. For for- 
eign countries official and special organisations must be 
created for this purpose, and will work in the service 
of a German official telegraph bureau. This bureau 
should be based as far as possible upon a German cable 
system or wireless service. The News Department will 
be advised about German economic propaganda in for- 
eign countries by a committee of prominent German 
traders abroad." 

Happily there are high barriers in the way of Ger- 
man control of American public opinion through the 
Press. In the first place, the vast majority of Amer- 
ican newspaper owners and editors can not be bought 
by all the money that the Kaiser can scrape together; 
and secondly, the war has revealed German methods 
enough to put us on our guard in the future. 



210 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

I confess that I have been surprised upon coming 
home to find the tide rising so high against German- 
ism. When I was in St. Paul, for example, I learned 
that School Commissioner Albert Wunderlich an- 
nounced his intention "to weed out of the school system 
every pro-German sympathiser among the teaching 
force." Indeed the commissioner, whose name would 
suggest at least partial German origin, began imme- 
diately to carry out his commendable policy. He also 
announced that no German would be taught at the St. 
Paul public schools next year, and this is a section 
of our country which I used to be told in Germany 
was safe ! 

The question of the elimination of German from our 
school is a debatable one. Properly supervised, the 
teaching of it as a foreign language ought not to be a 
danger. To do away with the language and the orig- 
inal study of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Heine, Ger- 
stacker and Storm, seemed to me at first like swinging 
the pendulum too far. But we are at war, and we are 
only beginning to have brought home to us the awful- 
ness of what war means. It is criminal not to take 
full measures to protect the men who are risking their 
lives and their health. If we do not truly mean busi- 
ness we have no ethical right to send a single soldier to 
meet his death. 

It is regrettably true that things essentially good may 
be used to accomplish evil. German music is stimulat- 
ing, and the group-singing of folk-songs ,1 myself have 
found exceedingly enjoyable. But when the passions 
aroused by music are deliberately used to weld Amer- 
icans of German origin to the machine of foreign mili- 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 211 

tarism, we must in self defence call a halt. Likewise, 
the language of good German literature is also the 
language of William II, Ludendorff and Tirpitz — the 
spearhead with which they would divide America. 
Such being the case, it is our duty to tear this spear- 
head from their hands. A general purging for a few 
years ought to be beneficial. After we smash Prussian- 
ism, we can safely restore the study of German to our 
curriculum. 

On this subject the Cologne Gazette contained an il- 
luminating article. Shortly after we declared war it 
said: 

"A constant work of political illumination must be 
carried on by us in the United States. Every American 
who is convinced that Germany is conducting a de- 
fensive war, is lost to the cause of the Entente. 

"In all this work, our best allies will continue to be 
the German-Americans whose services to the German 
cause can be underestimated only by crass ignorance of 
American conditions — ignorance which, indeed, is no 
rarity in many German circles. Good Americans as, of 
course, they are (reader will kindly note the ambiguity 
which I have italicised), they have hitherto pursued no 
separatist policy. Accordingly they do not constitute 
any self-contained group in the political life of the 
union. All the greater, however, is consequently their 
indirect influence because all classes, all professions, all 
political and other circles are leavened in strongest 
measure with German- Americans. 

"The German- Americans constitute a sounding board 
for German propaganda such as exists in no other enemy 
country, and they introduce into American feeling a 
factor of prudence and reserve which often already has 
been a matter of despair for Herr Wilson and his Eng- 



212 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

lish friends. We can be certain that now also, they 
will be at their posts." 

Looking more to the future, the "League for German- 
ism in Foreign Countries" says in its 1918 annual 
report : 

"We have regarded it as our duty to collect money 
for the time after the war, in order then to be in a posi- 
tion to employ adequate resources. After the peace we 
shall strive everywhere to improve our existing over- 
sea schools, and to give the Germans abroad such a 
course of education that, as far as possible, they will be 
superior to all other peoples. Our work must be com- 
pleted by the despatch of good propaganda literature and 
a news service. Only by the employment of large re- 
sources can thorough work be accomplished ; small funds 
are for the most part uselessly squandered. 

"We should like to insist that South America, the 
main field of our activity for many years past, consti- 
tutes a great sphere. Wide areas, with great possibili- 
ties of development, but little cultivated hitherto, are 
waiting to be opened up. It must be our business to 
employ here all our strength in order to retain and to 
make useful to ourselves these countries with their 
markets and raw materials. What we have to do is to 
arm for the peace and to collect money, in order to be 
able immediately to act with energy — with our whole 
strength and with sufficient resources." 



*S" 



An enterprising Hamburg concern, Paustian Broth- 
ers, began publishing English and French periodicals 
in 1918 entitled, respectively, Little Puck and Le Petit 
Parisien which are designed to help teach the English 
and French languages for after-the-war-trade purposes. 
An advertisement of the papers reads : 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 213 

"During the war England has for the most part 
paralysed German export trade. We shall and must 
recover what we have lost. To that end a knowledge 
of foreign languages is indispensable. Those who have 
an elementary knowledge of English or French should 
therefore not let it grow rusty, but subscribe to our 
journals. They are edited so as to give the quickest 
and most practical instruction. Civilians as well as 
soldiers and sailors at the front should take them. They 
specialise in trade idioms and everything else of value 
to our future export industry." 

There is, indeed, official sanction for the Germans 
whose activities in Allied countries have been so rudely 
interrupted by the war. In May, 1918, the Kaiser 
himself held out a "message of hope to all foreign 
Germans driven out of enemy countries." To thou- 
sands of these "foreign Germans" he has sent his photo- 
graph, accompanied by the following statement: 

"A stronger German Empire and a more intelligent 
German nation will look after our foreign German 
brothers after this victorious war, when they resume 
their life in hives of German industry and intellectual 
pursuits. God bless every German home which remains 
true to and proud of its German characteristics! God 
advance every man who does honour to his German 
name ! God protect German mothers who in silence but 
steadfastness bring up coming generations in the spirit 
of the German fathers, and God bless each and all of 
us who remain faithful to the future and greatness of 
the German national brotherhood! In unity there is 
strength !" 

Probably in connection with the former activities of 
these "foreign Germans" after the war, the new German 



214 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Foreign Museum of Stuttgart is gathering a great 
archive of information about their experiences. All 
such Germans and their relatives are being publicly 
requested to send the Museum every scrap of informa- 
tion of the experiences undergone by the "foreign Ger- 
mans" both at the outbreak of and during the war. 
How they succeeded in getting out of the hands of the 
enemy and getting home, is a point on which the fullest 
information is desired. "No details should be consid- 
ered too insignificant," says the appeal. 

That all of Berlin's efforts to unite Germans and 
disrupt us have not been confined to the intellectual side, 
we have had only too much evidence in the work of 
Count Bernstorff, Captain von Papen, Captain Boy-Ed, 
Captain Franz von Rintelen and their hired bands of 
dynamiters and assassins. 

I came upon a peculiar case in June, 1918, when I 
stopped off at one of our biggest munition centres on 
my way East from Chicago. After midnight the naval 
officer, who was my host, began to tell me of some 
enemy interference with artillery manufacture in a 
plant some eighteen miles away. 

"But that was some time ago, wasn't it?" I asked. 
"Such business is pretty well checked now, isn't it?" 

"It happened only yesterday," he said with warmth. 
"If you care to stay over to-morrow, I'll show you what 
they did." 

I told him that it was necessary for me to catch the 
10:30 train in the morning. 

"All right," he said. "If you care to miss your 
sleep, I'll take you to the plant early and let you see 
for yourself." 

I never believe in letting sleep interfere with such 



THE INVISIBLE ARMY 215 

opportunities, so I was on hand with him in the morn- 
ing in a mammoth building, filled with great guns, 
slowly revolving on the lathes which bored their bar- 
rels. 

My friend took me aside and showed me a stack of 
metal discs. "These must fit the gun breaches per- 
fectly," he said, "for they are part of the mechanism 
to prevent the gases coming back. Somebody through 
whose hands they were passed has quickly nicked 
each one with a hammer. That means that the guns 
must wait until another set can be made which, because 
of the minute accuracy of the work, will take consider- 
able time." 

He then conducted me to one of the powerful engines 
that run the lathes. "This is in the usual condition 
of most of the new ones that are coming in," he said. 
"Some enemy agent contrives to put emery into the 
bearings. If we run them for a week that way, they 
are out of commission. This means that we have got 
to stop, take them apart, and clean them before we even 
use them. All this delay helps the enemy." 

My mind went back to Essen and the volcanic activ- 
ity I had witnessed there ; of German workmen toiling 
in shifts incessantly to turn out guns and shells to rend 
limb from limb the soldiers of the Allies, our American 
lads among them. Yet here, in my own country, after 
more than a year of our participation in the war, I had 
seen evidence of the work which does not give the boys 
from home a fair chance in battles of machinery. 

All that day, as I rode in the train, a picture for 
which I yearned kept recurring— a picture with a blank 
wall in the background. Yet, despite this feeling 
against the agents who work to make our soldiers fight 



216 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

with one hand tied behind their backs, J am in hearty 
support of President Wilson's plea that there be no mob 
violence among us. That would not help us win the 
war but would be turned as a weapon against us. We 
should always act according to justice and law. Jus- 
tice, however, embodies all possible protection to the 
men who are risking everything on the other side. And 
when we prove anybody among us guilty of deliber- 
ately aiding Germany, that person should be legally 
dealt with to the limit, and the news published broad- 
cast as a deterrent to his co-workers. 



CHAPTEK IX 

OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 

The air was filled with the softness of the English 
spring, as I sat in my Mayfair apartments over- 
looking Piccadilly and the park. The evening papers 
which had just come in were full of the great German 
retreat to the Hindenhurg line, with stress laid upon 
Haig's mechanical problem of following up with all the 
machinery of his army. 

Modern war is largely machinery, but not all. Gaz- 
ing out across the park, I reflected that every day ro- 
mance and adventure behind the scenes equal anything 
to be found in literature. I was just then interested 
in the attempt of an Irish officer to escape from Ger- 
many. Some time the world may be privileged to read 
the details of a band of men who built up a system 
and took risks that vie with those of the "Scarlet Pim- 
pernell" in the days when the women of Paris knitted 
in rhythm with the guillotine. 

There was a knock on the door, and the man whom 
I was expecting entered, closing it gently behind him. 
He was young, of wiry build, and of uncertain nation- 
ality. 

"You are requested to advise me about getting into 
Germany," he said quietly. 

Germany, perhaps later. It might be better if this 
man, with his special qualifications, first looked into 

217 



2i8 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

some German affairs in South America which were di- 
rected against all the Allies, but chiefly against the 
United States, the latter having already broken with 
Germany and was on the verge of entering the war. 

One of the many lessons that I have learned from 
the struggle and my own participation in it, is the 
value of preliminary preparation for any task to be un- 
dertaken. I therefore started him on a three weeks' 
course of instruction, but rushed matters at the close 
of the second, when I got an inkling that one of the 
most important German prisoners in England was to be 
transferred to the United States. 

"Go to South America by way of New York," I 
said. "He will be on the Adriatic. Get in touch with 
him and see if you can get on to the inside of his 
game." 

That was in April, 1917. I next saw him in late 
September, when I got his signed report. He had 
done all that I expected — and more. 

My man, whom I shall call Jules, soon perceived 
when aboard ship that some secrets are not closely kept ; 
for there were vague rumours that a German spy was 
being transported to the United States for trial. No- 
body could locate him, however, and interest in the 
matter soon died. Not so with Jules. He knew his 
Germany and the German officers, and on the fourth 
day was sure of his man, whose manner of walking on 
deck, particularly the heel-click when he stood aside 
bowing to let a lady pass, showed unmistakably to the 
practised eye the mechanism inherent in the German 
officer. 

On the fifth day after breakfast, while making a turn 
on the boat-deck, Jules came upon his suspect quite 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 219 

alone. Attempts at conversation made little headway, 
however, beyond corroborating the fact that the stran- 
ger's excellent English betrayed a slight German ac- 
cent. 

Persistency, however, is one of Jules's most developed 
traits. After remarks about the weather, the passen- 
gers and the ship had drawn out only reluctant replies 
accompanied by furtive glances which betrayed the 
stranger's fear of being seen talking, Jules gradually 
switched the conversation to a comparison of vessels 
in peace time. He very reservedly favoured the North 
German Lloyd, explaining that, of course, as a neutral, 
he did not want to praise anything of the enemy of the 
country under whose flag he was sailing. 

"But I thought you were English," said the stranger. 

"Oh, no ! I have lived a long time in England ; but 
am a South American. I have also been much in Ger- 
many." 

At this the stranger showed decided interest, and be- 
gan to question Jules with great ability to see how much 
he knew about the Fatherland. My man began to an- 
swer him apparently with great care, but suddenly 
seemed to forget himself, as the conversation grew more 
lively, with the exclamation, "Well, you know it is not 
to be wondered at if I do favour the North German 
Lloyd, considering that my cousins hold heavy interests 
in it." 

The stranger was surprised and delighted when Jules 
named the "cousins" with the correct German accent. 
He was still further delighted when Jules went on to 
explain that his country, particularly higher up, was 
intensely pro-Gemian and that as a man who knew both 



220 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Germany and England he hoped to be useful for prop- 
aganda service helpful to the former. 

At this the stranger threw off all reserve, and, after 
a quick look up and down the deck to see that nobody 
was in sight, he told Jules, with suppressed excitement, 
that they could work together and be of great service 
to one another. He took a piece of paper from his 
pocket, scribbled briefly upon it, held it so that Jules 
could read, then tore it up and threw it to the winds. 

Only a name had been written on the card — but a 
magic name that thrilled the man who read it. The 
name was: 

CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN 

Von Rintelen explained that he was granted most of 
the privileges of a passenger by giving his word of 
honour to the Scotland Yard man in charge of him that 
he would avoid conversation and would not mention 
his name to any one. "So that is why I wrote it," 
said the German naval officer, with a laugh. 

He was especially indignant that he had been locked 
in his cabin during the first three days, and heaped 
abuse upon the British Government for exposing him 
thus to the dangers of the war zone, saying that it was 
a violation of international law. "Why, in case of at- 
tack," he added, "I should have been drowned like a 
rat in a trap." 

Shades of the Lusitania, the Arabia, the Fa! aba, the 
Sussex! The little fishing vessels, the hospital ships 
with their helpless wounded, and the men shelled in 
open boats! Von Rintelen's bump of humour must 
certainly be a cavity. 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 221 

Von Rintelen was so keen to make use of my man 
that he mapped out a course of future meetings. 1. 
After dinner, every evening they would meet at eight 
at the end of the second deck where it was pitch dark 
and always empty. 2. When the man who had trusted 
Rintelen on his word of honour, played chess in the 
smoking-room — a most absorbing game — they would 
meet in the reading room if it were empty. 3. They 
would, at certain hours, varied each day, walk on cer- 
tain decks, also varied each day. At such times as 
they were not observed, they could communicate. 

Next morning a rough wind cleared the starboard 
promenade deck to the convenience of the two men. In 
the early part of their long conversation, von Rintelen 
was at pains to emphasise his importance and family 
connections — something quite unnecessary for the well- 
informed Jules. He dwelt bitterly upon what he con- 
sidered unfair treatment, that he had been captured 
by the British when on his way from America to Ger- 
many, travelling on a false passport. Much as he dis- 
liked being a prisoner in England, he relished even less 
the prospect of going to New York to stand trial for 
complicity in bomb-plotting. Donnington Hall had at 
any rate been a most comfortable prison, with the added 
convenience that he could communicate more or less reg- 
ularly with the Deutsche Bank through Holland. 

He explained his high position in the Bank and his 
alliance with Krupp's through the fact that his father- 
in-law, Herr von Kaufmann, was the man who arranged 
all the details of the German-Bulgarian alliance and 
was at the head of the whole Krupp organisation in 
Bulgaria. He is also related to Count Hecht, one of 



222 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

the great agrarian leaders of the Conservative party 
in the Reichstag. 

Before the bugle for lunch had blown, Rintelen be- 
came so thrilled in the anticipation of using my man 
that he again and again assured him that if he would 
carry out his instructions he would give him carte 
blanche any time he wished to go to Germany whether 
in war or peace. 

"What are the details of the work you wish me to 
do?" Jules asked. 

"They are many," said von Rintelen, quickly. 
"First I would impress upon you to remember accu- 
rately a certain code signal that must reach the Admi- 
ralty. That code " 

He was interrupted with a laugh up the deck. Two 
passengers apparently out to make the round as an ap- 
petiser for lunch, had lurched against the rail when 
the ship rolled in the trough of the wind-blown sea. 
They were so occupied with their own affairs that they 
failed to notice the two men. Even had they done so, 
they would probably have attached no significance to 
their being together. But the German naval captain, 
taking no chances, strolled on alone. 

Jules camped in the reading-room during the after- 
noon as agreed, but the hours wore on to tea-time and 
from tea-time to dinner with no sign of von Rintelen. 

"It will be hard luck," he reflected, "if he is locked 
up or has thought better of the matter and will not 
give me his instructions — and I was just going to get 
them, too." 

Dinner over, Jules took up his stand in the pitch 
dark of the second deck. He had not long to wait. A 
shadowy figure passed close to him, but he could not be 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 223 

sure in the dark that it was his man. He remembered 
that they had not agreed upon a signal for this emer- 
gency, but met the situation by softly whistling a line 
of Die Lorelei. The response showed the figure was 
von Rintelen. 

"One good thing," began the latter, "is that no one 
will come looking for me with a torch. I notice that 
these dogs are taking every precaution against our 
TJ-boats, and there are strict regulations against any 
lights on deck from sunset to sunrise." 

Jules intended to remind him of the code message, 
but such intention proved entirely unnecessary inas- 
much as it was the first thing uppermost in his com- 
panion's mind. 

"First of all, J would remind you to fix in your mind 
the phrase, RINTELEN MELDET. Later I will tell 
you how to get it to Germany. A German officer, es- 
pecially a naval officer, never forgets that wherever he 
is, his first duty is to his Kaiser and his Fatherland. 
That duty transcends and nullifies everything else. It 
is, moreover, the duty of every diplomatic and consular 
officer, wherever stationed, to work incessantly ferret- 
ting out secrets, and always bearing in mind that even 
though the country in which he may find himself may 
not have at the time the status of an enemy it must al- 
ways be considered a potential enemy." 

A frank admission out there in the dark, with the 
wind howling and the sea foaming white against the 
hull, of the policy of modern Germany to go among the 
nations as the wolf in the fleece of the lamb. 

"You have German blood in your veins, and you 
must be one of us in our war against the Anglo-Saxon 
powers of England and America," von Rintelen 



224 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

breathed warmly, in his best Tirpitzian manner. 
"America has now joined actively in the war. If we 
tie up her efforts we shall be victorious in Europe; for 
we, who have inside information, are certain of the suc- 
cess of our submarine warfare. Personally I am 
equally certain that our plans in the United States 
will succeed, for we have laid them thoroughly. I know 
what I am talking about, for I have been the head of my 
country's organisation in America. It was the wish 
of Berlin that I keep in the background." 

I would remind the reader that von Rintelen's opin- 
ions, as expressed on the Adriatic are historic, inas- 
much as he, with Admiral von Hintze (now Foreign 
Minister in place of von Kuhlmann), has long been 
the darling of the Kaiser, which makes his opinion the 
inside official one. 

Von Rintelen expressed great faith in the success of : 

1. The pro-German anti-war propaganda in Amer- 
ica — his exact expression. 

2. The destruction of important manufacturing 
plants in the United States. 

3. Interference with railways and shipping. 

4. Strikes. 

He felt that American industry was increasingly 
prone to strikes because of the laxity of central disci- 
pline as compared with Germany. German agents would 
encourage this tendency, and would not only foment 
strikes but he hoped in the case of vital key industries 
to subsidise the strikers from a special fund to enable 
them to stay out indefinitely. 

5. Political pressure. In this von Rintelen ex- 
pressed great contempt for Americans in general and 
for certain politicians in particular, who, he said, would 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 225 

blow up the whole country provided they got the price. 

6. The probability that Germany could stir up so 
much trouble between Mexico and the United States 
that most of the already restricted activities of the lat- 
ter would have to be used against her Southern neigh- 
bour. 

7. He also hoped that the bases contemplated in Cen- 
tral American waters, as well as factories in Mexico, 
would enable an effective submarine campaign to be 
carried out on that side of the Atlantic. These were 
the hopes of Germany's directors at the time we entered 
the war. It is very comforting to know precisely just 
what von Eintelen counted upon, for we need only do 
the opposite to thwart him and his country. 

It is noteworthy that von Rintelen expressed great 
surprise that America had declared war, to which he 
attributed purely mercenary motives. This opinion is 
of tremendous importance, for it concerns the psycho- 
logical side of the war, which is the basic side. The 
greatest battles and military campaigns, with all their 
valour and with all their horror, are but incidents 
thrown in relief upon it. 

In Chapter V I told how the humble soldiers of Hun- 
gary with whom I talked on the Italian front were 
victims of this mercenary delusion. That is under- 
standable, for they are but dupes. But it seems rather 
difficult to credit the leaders with the belief that we 
are in the war solely for financial gain. Yet I feel 
that this is the true opinion of the Rintelens, the Lu- 
dendorffs, and the Hohenzollerns. 

In the first place, they know in their hearts that they 
are in the war to make a territorially and economically 
greater Germany. They therefore naturally attribute 



226 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

to others the motives which are their own. They are 
furthermore imbued with an idea difficult for Americans 
to comprehend, that unless we had financial or ulterior 
motives, we would have stood aside when Germany com- 
manded. 

During the crisis following the torpedoing of the 
Sussex, even mild Germans exclaimed to me: "But 
why should Americans be travelling on those ships when 
Germany says they have no right to do so?" All of 
which means that we can get along very nicely with 
the Germans if we can but devise some means of 
betaking ourselves to some other planet. If we can 
not do this, there remains only the alternative of 
physically thrashing them until they know they are 
beaten. 

No doubt Jules reflected in similar vein as he lis- 
tened to von Rintelen, while the wind whistled down 
the deck and the ship lurched in the waves. 

"We had better play safe to-morrow," said the Kai- 
ser's master-agent. "Let us meet here in the evening, 
after eight, when I shall have prepared for you a list 
of definite instructions. Nothing must be written. 
You had better repeat them after me until you know 
them by heart." 

Next day was a long one for Jules. 

Rintelen was on time in the evening, however. "You 
will earn my eternal gratitude if you will carry out 
the following as soon as possible after you land," he 
directed : 

"1. If America has not already broken diplomatic 
relations with Austria-Hungary or Turkey or Bulgaria, 
go to the diplomatic heads of one of these in "Washing- 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 227 

ton and tell them that you crossed with me. Ask him 
to communicate immediately with Berlin with regard to 
freeing me from America. I can be of great service to 
my country should I get to Mexico or elsewhere, — and 
there are further reasons why my Government will do 
everything to set me free. 

"We have practised reprisals successfully against the 
English. We can doubtless do the same against the 
Americans. In a case of reprisals, it might be best to 
make an attempt with the English first. Have the 
diplomat with whom you deal send word to Berlin sug- 
gesting a trial of the British Colonel Napier similar 
to the one which I shall undergo in America. Also, to 
choose two or three of the most important English 
prisoners of war and use them as hostages. 

"That piece of business concluded, or rather in ad- 
vance of it, have them send the code message RINTE- 
LEN MELDET. That is most important of all. The 
entire admiralty staff will jump in the air for joy when 
they receive it. 

"2. Have them also notify Berlin that this ship 
took a course off Ireland marked 'Unfit for naviga- 
tion/ Berlin will probably understand which course 
is meant, and our U-boats will sow that course with 
mines. 

"3. Should anything prevent you going to Washing- 
ton, or should you be unable to get in touch with any 
of the diplomats mentioned, please go to Mexico and 
give the same messages to von Eckhardt, the leader of 
German enterprise there. In that case, it would be also 
well to have him advise President Carranza to take 
three of the most prominent American citizens he can 
lay his hands on and practise reprisals upon them until 
I am set free on Mexican soil. 

"4. Of my great funds, I still have $400,000 of my 



228 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

own in American banks. Remind whatever diplomat 
you confer with to get hold of this sum. 

"5. I will give you the name of a big New York 
business man who can advance you any funds you may 
need. He and his whole office are staunchly German 
in spite of appearances. He can furthermore advance 
you capital for any enterprises which he approves. This 
he will probably do through a Mexican firm ... a lit- 
tle device we have adopted to throw the American 
Secret Service off the track." 

In subsequent meetings Captain von Rintelen made 
certain that Jules could repeat these instructions ver- 
batim. In everything, however, he impressed Jules 
with the conviction that he greatly feared being brought 
to trial in America. 

When Jules returned to South America from New 
York, he visited von Rintelen, then awaiting trial. 
This was a custom of some of von Rintelen's friends. 
The officer prisoner, who has at least the quality of 
never giving up, told him that rare good fortune had 
enabled him to send all his messages direct to Berlin 
with Admiral von Hintze, who was travelling through 
New York from Pekin to the Wilhelmstrasse on a 
diplomatic passport. Von Rintelen added that he also 
gave the Admiral some up-to-the-minute shipping news. 

That von Rintelen's messages bore fruit, was evi- 
denced in the newspapers of June 8th, 1918, when 
Washington published Secretary Lansing's defiance to 
the Kaiser in the following diplomatic correspondence: 

On April 20, 1918, the Swiss minister presented 
to the State Department the following note from the 
German government. 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 229 

"On Dec. 20, 1917, the merchant and interpreter, 
Siegfried Paul London, a citizen of the United States, 
was condemned to death by court-martial at Warsaw 
for treason as a spy. The governor-general of Warsaw, 
exercising clemency on Jan. 9, 1918, commuted this 
sentence to 10 years' penal servitude. According to 
facts established at the court-martial, London obtained 
citizenship in the year 1887. He is married to an 
American citizen, May Leonhard. 

"London was found guilty because, for the period 
from the beginning of the war until about May, 1915, 
he served the enemy as a spy. He was arrested on this 
account as early as Aug. 27, 1915. He succeeded, how- 
ever, in escaping, but was recaptured on Sept. 24, 1917. 
For this reason the chief proceedings against him took 
place only recently. 

"Up to the present time, the efforts of the German 
government to effect an improvement in the situation 
of Capt. Eintelen, who passed into the hands of the 
American authorities by reason of acts of the British 
government contrary to international law, have been 
unsuccessful. The attempt to bring to a halt the crim- 
inal proceedings brought against him in America and 
to secure his release, ha3 likewise been without result. 
In order to lend greater emphasis to the protests which 
have been lodged with the American government the 
German government contemplates some appropriate 
measures of reprisal. It would, however, prefer to 
avoid the contingency that persons be taken and made 
to suffer because the government of the United States 
was apparently not sufficiently cognisant of its inter- 
national obligations toward a German subject. 

"Before making a definite decision the German gov- 
ernment believes it should propose to the government of 
the United States that Captain von Rintelen be set at 



230 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

liberty by exchange for the American citizen Paul Lon- 
don, who was condemned to death for espionage, and 
whose sentence was later commuted to 10 years' penal 
servitude, and that Captain von Rintelen be permitted 
forthwith to return to Germany. Should the govern- 
ment of the United States agree to this proposal, the 
German government would take steps that London's un- 
completed term of imprisonment be remitted and that 
he be set at liberty in order that he may immediately 
leave the country." 

To this communication Secretary Lansing sent the 
following reply through the Swiss minister: 

"I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 
memorandum of April 13, 1918, communicating a trans- 
lation of a note verbale from the German government, 
transmitted by the Swiss political department, propos- 
ing the exchange of Capt. Tranz von Rintelen for 
Siegfried Paul London, an alleged American citi- 
zen condemned to 10 years' penal servitude in Ger- 
many. The German government threatens measures of 
reprisal if Rintelen is not released or exchanged for 
London. 

"In reply, I have the honour to advise you that 
this Government can not consider the exchange of 
Rintelen for London, nor can it consider the release of 
Rintelen or interference in the due process of law in 
his case. 

"The threat of the German government to retaliate 
by making Americans in Germany sutler clearly implies 
that the Government proposes to adopt the principle that 
the reprisals occasioning physical suffering are legiti- 
mate and necessary in order to enforce demands from 
one belligerent to another. The Government of the 



OUR PRISONER EXTRAORDINARY 231 

United States acknowledges no such principle, and 
would suggest that it would be wise for the German 
Government to consider that if it acts upon that prin- 
ciple it will inevitably be understood to invite similar 
reciprocal action on the part of the United States with 
respect to the great number of German subjects in this 
country. It is assumed that the German Government 
before acting will give due reflection and due weight to 
this consideration. 

"I beg that you will be good enough to bring the 
foregoing statement to the attention of the German 
Government." 

Secretary Lansing's reply is magnificently straight 
to the point, with the right punch. It indicates that 
Washington thoroughly understands the Germans and 
is determined to deal with them in the only effective 
way. 



CHAPTER X 



FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 



Since my return to America I have seen some war 
plays, — in which the villain role usually falls to 
the Kaiser or some of his subjects. 

It might be interesting and instructive to the reader 
to take a peep at the other side. The Germans are a 
theatre-going race. During the war their Government 
has not only refrained from interfering with public 
amusements but has fostered them. In France and 
Italy, war-time restaurants and cafes are, for the most 
part, establishments solely for the replenishment of the 
interior. In Germany, on the other hand, there has 
been no diminution of music. 

German theatres have continued to flourish. To 
such an extent do the authorities believe in foster- 
ing good spirit among the food-ticketed stay-at-homes 
that they have exempted the majority of actors. The 
opera in Berlin, Vienna, Dresden, and other centres 
has been given as in peace, as have also the standard 
German dramas of Lessing, Schiller, Goethe and 
Sudermann. 

Shakespeare continues to be played far more in Ger- 
many than in England. It is the one product bear- 
ing the English hall-mark against which the German 
has not raged. Indeed, many Germans refer to the 
immortal bard as Unser Shakespeare. Just as some 

232 



FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 233 

German professors have devoted genealogical treatises 
to prove that Christ is a German, so do some of their 
fellow miracle-men seriously claim Shakespeare as Ger- 
man because "only the Germans fully appreciate him/' 
and therefore he and the spirit of Germany are one. 
In fact, Herr Doktor Hermann Scheffauer has writ- 
ten at length to show that Shakespeare's soul, "dis- 
gusted with England's mercenary warfare," has moved 
from Stratford to Weimar. Give the German pro- 
fessor a gullible public, and he will prove anything. 
That is why it is so easy for him — at home — to demon- 
strate that Germany had the war wished upon her by a 
jealous world. 

I saw my first German war play in December, 1914. 
It bore the strikingly significant title of Wir Barbaren 
(We Barbarians), and was given all over Germany. 
It was a comedy with music, dealing, as its ironic 
title indicates, with the charges preferred against Ger- 
many by her enemies that she is conducting operations 
in a manner that would delight the heart of Attila. 

When I attended the piece in Frankfort the im- 
mense Circus Schumann seating 4,000 people was 
packed. 

The action opens on July 31, 1914, fixed by the 
author, Herr Fritz Odemar, as the date when his typi- 
cal Berlin family is roused from the comfort of the 
breakfast table by the news that "all" the Fatherland's 
foes have simultaneously and treacherously declared 
war upon her. 

Leitmotif: "German Unity." Father, mother, daugh- 
ter, son, daughter's sweetheart, house-porter, postman, 
cook — everybody — aflame with fiery patriotism. 
"Deutschland, Deutschland iiber Alles !" is wafted 



234 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

through the windows from the street, to the accompani- 
ment of the trample of marching crowds. The mother, 
in bad . English which she proceeds to air — a typical 
touch — exclaims : "Zie English gentlemens — can it be ?" 
Her menfolk stand and snarl in rage and repeat in ac- 
cents of scorn, "Zie gentlemens!" There are grandilo- 
quent apotheoses to the might and right of the German 
Fatherland, and the curtain falls amid an impromptu 
chorus by everybody in the scene — "Die Wacht am 
Rhein." It is now the audience's cue to play its part. 
It has mastered its lines perfectly, and the amphi- 
theatre rings promptly with as hearty an outburst of 
cheers as one would hear on an American football 
field. 

The second act develops a delightfully ideal German 
family life and emphasises the lofty sentiments which 
fire both the men who are leaving for the front and 
the women patriots who are remaining behind to knit 
and nurse. The curtain has hardly dropped when 
there is a rush of usher-waiters down the aisles carry- 
ing huge trays covered with steins of beer — a little 
entr'acte which happily transfers some of the idealism 
to the audience's side of the footlights. 

Act III finds us behind an extremely realistic trench 
on the fighting line in Belgium. It is the great act 
which won for the author the Kaiser's recognition for 
valuable services rendered on the home front. 

The sufferings of the troops — it is already winter — 
are depicted, and particularly the lighthearted humour 
with which they are borne. More home touches when 
field-postman arrives with letters. As a people, the 
theatre-going Germans can get more for their money 
in the way of sentiment and emotion than can any 



FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 235 

other people. Hence, audible sobs when the letters were 
given out. A parcel of newspapers is there for the 
company in the trench. A sergeant eagerly surrounded 
by the men reads aloud: "Russians defeated by von 
Hindenburg." (Audience explodes, shrieking, "Hoch, 
Hindenburg! Napoleon von Hindenburg! Hoch!" 
The sergeant continues: "Belgrade Fallen!" (More vo- 
ciferous cheers, this time for Austria.) "Belgium 
Crushed!" (Sighs of satisfaction and relief.) 

A rush in the wings toward which the soldiers look. 
Somebody is coming, and the audience holds its ex- 
pectant breath. A French soldier enters, bright in 
historic red trousers and cap. A disgustingly pitiable 
object, shuddering with terror of anticipated brutal 
treatment, he throws himself on the ground and crawls 
up to the strutting Prussian captain, bleating inces- 
santly, "Spare my life! Spare my life!" Prussian 
captain, magnanimity personified, motions that the 
prisoner be led off, warmed up, and fed. (Audience 
indulges in smiles, nudges, nods and hand-clappings, 
indicating pride in German strength and humanitarian- 
ism.) Who said "barbarians"? 

The night grows colder, and the Germans button 
their great coats. Presently the French prisoner is 
again seen, devouring ravenously a huge hunk of rye 
bread — he has not eaten for days. Poor fellow! he 
has no great coat to button about him. He shivers 
visibly. A German soldier moves into a position suffi- 
ciently conspicuous to attract the spectators' attention 
to the fact that he is looking at the cold, shaking enemy. 
The audience scarcely breathes as he begins to unbut- 
ton his coat and slowly subtracts his arms from the 
warm sleeves. Good Heavens! Is he going to give it 



236 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

to the Frenchman ? The suspense heightens as he prof- 
fers it to the amazed prisoner who, after accepting it, 
goes to a corner and lies down to sleep. 

Now came another example of the thousands I have 
witnessed of the highly-developed German characteristic 
of overdoing nearly everything. Another soldier re- 
moves his coat, tiptoes to the figure in the corner so as 
not to wake him up, and carefully places the garment, 
blanket-like, upon him. Another does likewise, and 
then another, until five of them, after piling their coats 
on the slumbering poilu, move to the opposite corner of 
the stage to shiver en bloc. 

When the Germans set out to prove anything they 
believe in going the limit. The audience is taking it all 
seriously. Dry eyes are now the exception. Who said 
"barbarians" ? Who called us "Huns" ? The act closes 
with an unter-offizier singing a ten-verse song on the 
theme that the Germans are not barbarians, with the 
chorus at the end of each verse concluding: "Ein 
Deutscher Held ist kein Barbar." (A German Hero is 
no Barbarian.) This, need I say, brought down the 
house. 

Act IV gives us another scene in the bosom of the 
Berlin family. Fritz, the son of the household, is at 
the Front; likewise, Karl, the daughter's sweetheart, 
ditto Hans, the house-porter's offspring. Fraulein is 
poring over a book of poems of which her lover in 
the trenches has a duplicate, in "code," so that when 
they exchange letters, they may call attention to the par- 
ticular page, 98 or 63, or whatever it may be, which 
contains the particular ditty in the mind of the one 
who wrote. Then the other turns to it, and the wire- 
less language of love speaks. 



FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 237 

Word arrives, — a casualty list — that Fritz is wound- 
ed, Hans missing. Both fathers give way to anguish. 
Karl has been wounded too, for before the final curtain, 
now about to descend, he and Fritz enter, arms in 
slings. (In audience, suppressed tears, sobs of joy.) 
Family reunion, much of embracing, weeping, and 
kissing. The "Heroes of Belgium" start in to re- 
count their glorious experiences. Finale: "Die Wacht 
am Rhein" by the assembled company, with audience 
standing and joining in. Then a parting tornado of 
Hoclis and hurrahs, and the usual stampede for the 
cloak-rooms. 

"Das Ausland sollte das Stuck nur 'mal sehen!" 
(Foreign countries should just see this piece), sighs 
a portly dowager. 

It has been a great night. Four thousand Germans 
are convinced that "we" are not "barbarians." 

I celebrated Washington's Birthday, 1916, by attend- 
ing in Berlin a performance of the widely advertised 
"Unsere Feinde — Grosses Patriotisches Schauspiel aus 
der Gegenwart in 4 Akten" (Our Enemies — Great Pa- 
triotic Performance of the Present Day in 4 Acts). 
This show delighted Berlin afternoon and evening for 
a full season. 

Act I. On the Isonzo. Italian and Austrian soldiers 
succeed one another in the early scenes, the former 
making a uniformly unfavourable impression. An un- 
prepossessing lot, they indulge in such objectionable 
tactics as declaring war on Austria-Hungary, attempt- 
ing to win the belle of the village by force of arms, and 
preparing to shoot father of same in cold blood. The 
latter is happily rescued by the Austrians in a finale 
in which the Italians prove to be such exceedingly bad 



238 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

fighters that they throw away most of their arms while 
running for safety. The only thing that saved them 
from pursuit was the musical temperament of the vic- 
torious captain who, in the true manner of a Franz 
Lehar or Leo Fall operetta hero, picked up a violin and 
played out his heart to the beautiful rescued daughter. 

Though the audience enjoyed the waltz, perhaps later 
in their military after-thoughts, they evolved a possible 
explanation of why their ally has never proved able to 
follow through an offensive. 

Act II. Winter in the Vosges, with realistic scenes of 
mountain batteries going into action, troops on skis, and 
Red Cross dogs sniffing out the wounded. Then a de- 
serted stage, save for the fallen, and a French peasant 
enters to rob the dead. The thumbs in the arena are 
turned down apparently, however, and the appetite of 
the onlookers for enemy "cussedness" is not sated un- 
til the peasant cuts the throats of the wounded. I was 
told that in the first performances he had indulged only 
in robbery, but that the act went very much better after 
the addition of the murder scene. 

Act III. The battle on the Narew. The Cossacks 
attack the Austro-Hungarian infantry but are as quick- 
ly disposed of as in an official report. Only one volley 
is necessary for these hirsute cavalrymen, and those who 
do not conveniently slide dead from their horses, are 
dragged from them, ten-foot lances and all, and forth- 
with bundled into waiting waggons for early shipment 
to Germany. 

But Russia still disputes the Narew river. The 
Austro-German force lies concealed as a strong body 
of Russian infantry enters the arena. The Russians 
appear businesslike and determined. They are un- 



FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 239 

aware that the enemy is in the vicinity, and consequently 
press forward with vigour. 

"Surrender!" yells the leader of the men in ambush. 

The immediate effect of his command is startling. 
Whereas the performers had, since the very beginning of 
the first act, appeared to lack team-work, all the Russians 
now worked together in amazing unison. Like one 
man they threw their rifles to the ground, dropped to 
their knees, and in a flash two Russian hands were 
stretched rigid and weaponless above each Russian 
head. 

It was clearly the most perfectly rehearsed business 
in the show, and I laughed. 

A young officer beside me frowned. "I don't like 
it," he said. 

"Not a bad idea, though," I remarked. "The sur- 
render of the Russians without a shot being fired de- 
lights the audience and saves ammunition expenses for 
the management." 

"But such things are taken seriously by the stay-at- 
homes, and they don't realise that we in the army have 
to fight hard to defeat our enemies. Such representa- 
tions and newspaper accounts of enemy faint-hearted- 
ness will tend to diminish our heroic standing in the 
public eye." 

Act IV. Constantinople and the Golden Horn. 
The audience cheers as Sultan Mohammed V receives 
the ambassadors of Germany, Austria-Hungary and 
Bulgaria. This little ocular demonstration of unity 
concluded, the heroes of the Emden, headed by Lieu- 
tenant von Miicke, march upon the stage, while the 
audience rises to its feet. 

These gone, English, French and Russian prisoners 



240 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

are led on under Turkish guard. From a nearby 
minaret sounds the call for evening prayer. The 
Mohammedans prostrate themselves upon the earth. 
The Christian prisoners having failed to imitate their 
example, are beaten to the ground, to the deep satis- 
faction of the audience. 

Thus in Berlin is the will of Allah done! 



I saw the last of my German war plays in Stuttgart, 
where I witnessed the famous three-act drama — "In 
Dollarland." The action took place in New York dur- 
ing 1916. The play hinges upon the mental anguish 
of a group of Germans cut off from their beloved Father- 
land and forced to live among money-grubbing Yan- 
kees. Politics enter continually. 

On one occasion, one of the characters remarks: 
"Money will do anything in the United States. It 
should be great satisfaction to our good Kaiser to know 
that he will never have to spill any German blood 
when dealing with America. He will always be able 
to buy what he wants over here." 

At which Stuttgart breathed more easily and ap- 
plauded. 

The hero has had the terrible misfortune — so feel his 
parents — to fall in love with the daughter of a wealthy 
American. To be sure, she has the redeeming quality 
of having once studied in Germany. She might re- 
form, but they can not tolerate the father who, like 
all the rest of his countrymen, cares for nothing but 
the accumulation of money. This is, of course, par- 
ticularly obnoxious to a hero whom you generally hear 
before you see, owing to his habit of bursting forth 






FOOTLIGHT WARFARE 241 

into idyllic snatches of song ; and fifty per cent of whose 
conversation consists of quotations from classic German 
and Latin writers. 

I reflected that he might have been much more in- 
teresting and true to life if he had been mixed up in 
some sort of a bomb-plot, but perhaps the censor would 
have objected to such realism. 

Act III witnesses a tremendous transformation of 
the objectionable character in the piece — the rich father. 
His contact with the idealistic colony of Kultur de- 
votees, sets him thinking that there are higher things 
in life than amassing fortunes. He gives a dinner to 
the hero and his temperamental coterie in which he 
denounces his country's unneutral behaviour in "making 
ammunition for the enemies of a peace-loving nation 
fighting for its existence under its peace-loving Em- 
peror." He then solemnly takes down the picture of 
President Wilson and uses it to step upon while he puts 
up a picture of William II. 

Stuttgart goes wild. 

The same evening the reformed father conveniently 
discovers that his great-grandparents came from Ger- 
many, and that his name of Stone had simply been 
anglicised. The others could not go to Germany now, 
but he would do so and would become a naturalised 
subject of the Kaiser. 

I reflected that this might be difficult if the German 
authorities learned of his past as revealed in Acts I and 
II, for I recalled that Clause 2 of the German naturali- 
sation regulations reads — without any intentional hu- 
mour: "A certificate of naturalisation may be granted 
to foreigners only when they have led an unblemished 
life." 



242 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Stuttgart sobbed when be went on to say tbat be 
would begin life afresb in tbe land of bis ancestors. 

A faraway look came into tbe eyes of tbe Germans 
gathered about bim. He could go, for be could still 
retain bis American nationality and cross tbe seas; but 
tbey — oh, tbe anguisb of it all, tbey must remain be- 
hind; for tbey were Germans. 

Tben tbe bero bad a brigbt idea — bis first in three 
acts. 

"But father-in-law-to-be," he exclaimed, "you can 
take us all with you back to our dear Fatherland." 

A pause and a hush as the company stares in amaze- 
ment at the speaker. The dramatic climax has arrived. 

"But we are Germans, and the British fleet will not 
let us cross," all cry in unison. 

"But have you forgotten that father-in-law is rich, 
and that money will buy anything in America ? Father- 
in-law will buy American passports for all of us." 

At this the whole company surged around the hero 
and embraced bim, tben raised their glasses and sang, 
"In der Heimat." 

Stuttgart could go to bed happy. Why worry about 
America? Switch on the U-boat war! 



CHAPTER XI 

A DUSTY VOLUME IN BERLIN 

Four of us rose from our coffee-substitute in the 
Cafe Viktoria, Berlin. Among other things, we 
had been glancing over some London newspapers to 
which the Cafe still continued to subscribe, despite long 
years of war. That is, two of us, a fellow-American 
lawyer and I, looked at these papers. Our companions, 
two Germans lawyers of repute, refused to look at them. 
"Nothing but lies," they said. 

We adjourned to the palatial offices of the two Ger- 
mans, where we sat down in the library to talk war. 
The "professor-lawyers" preferred this to working on 
cases inasmuch as they spent most of their time writ- 
ing newspaper articles and bulky pamphlets which the 
Government could export by the ton to convince neu- 
trals that Germany is always right. 

A friend of one entered and joined us. He looked 
military, every inch of him, in his well-fitting uniform 
of a major of artillery. He was the scion to a great 
Junker estate in Pomerania. "We were just dis- 
cussing the causes of the war," my fellow- American ex- 
plained. 

The major merely shrugged his shoulders in a man- 
ner which seemed to suggest that such a discussion 
would bore him. I saw that gathered in the room were 
contrasting types of Germans and was struck with an 
idea. 

243 



244 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

I never believed in waiting for news to come to me. 
My method of drawing out opinions when I was among 
Germans was to take the other side of the question, so 
as to put them on the defensive. German education has 
left debate and argument almost entirely out of its cur- 
riculum. There is a reason for this. With us, school- 
debating training is based, as a rule, upon a discussion 
of political questions. The German subject is not sup- 
posed to discuss political matters, but unquestioningly 
to obey military and police regulations. This explains, 
in part, why even German professors argue on the war 
as though they were children. Like the majority of 
their countrymen, they are easy to anger when crossed 
in debate. Making use of this characteristic, I was often 
enabled to obtain honest opinions, even from members 
of the Wilhelmstrasse. Their guarded selves would 
disappear and their real selves would momentarily flash 
out — flashes to which I attribute vastly greater im- 
portance than all the carefully thought-out interviews 
with which they have deluged newspaper correspon- 
dents. It was through such flashes that I was able ac- 
curately to forecast the U-boat policy which would 
eventually drive us into war. 

To afford me a loophole, I often used the simple, 
but effective device of putting my questions in a form 
which I could use for protection in case they were 
charged against me to show that I was an anti-German 
bent on planting seditious ideas. Thus I would say, 
for example, after the manner of an impartial judge, 
"Some among your enemies assert that your U-boat 
commanders are a worse set of pirates than any that 
ever sailed the Spanish Main." Although this happens 



A DUSTY VOLUME IN BERLIN 245 

to be my opinion, the form in which I made the state- 
ment did not, from the legal aspect, make it neces- 
sarily so. 

Adopting these tactics in the Berlin office that after- 
noon, I turned to the major and remarked, "Every- 
where in Germany I always find stress laid upon the 
declaration that England started the war. The ma- 
jority of people that I have met outside of Germany, 
on the contrary, express the opinion that it was Ger- 
many that " 

"Lies, English lies !" interrupted both professor-law- 
yers, almost in unison. 

The major, however, merely shrugged his shoulders 
again. "Why all this quibbling!" he exclaimed, with 
the least trace of petulance. "Germany's world-position 
depends first of all upon her army. To-day our troops 
are sweeping rapidly forward through Roumania. If 
Russia has any strength left, why doesn't she help her 
new ally ?" And he laughed with satisfaction. "We 
can be proud of our army. Throughout history, other 
nations, when strong enough to do so, have made war. 
Why do outsiders cry baby because Germany does so ?" 

I saw the iron hot and took a chance. "But many 
of them have expressed surprise that Germany brought 
on the war just when she did," I ventured. 

"We did so because we thought it was our best time !" 
snapped the major. 

For a moment, I thought I had been dreaming. At 
last I had found a German — a forerunner to Lichnow- 
sky and Miihlon — who expressed himself honestly on, 
"Who caused the war?" I had searched the Empire 
from the north to the south, and from the east to the 



246 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

west, thus far without success. At last I could extin- 
guish my Diogenean lantern. 

The two publicity professor-lawyers were almost in 
a state of collapse. Their sacred duty of convincing all 
neutrals as to Germany's innocence had received an un- 
expected and deplorable setback from this painfully 
frank Junker militarist. Give them time and the quiet- 
ness of their studies, and they would doubtless evolve a 
lengthy explanatory antidote to the major's poison. 
Perhaps they would explain that the long strain of war 
had wrecked his nerves. Under the pressure of dis- 
cussion in company, however, they could only phono- 
graphically splutter: "Our Kaiser wanted no war!" 
"Germany has always wanted to live in peace and let 
other nations live in peace!" "For forty years Ger- 
many remained at peace. This is proof that we did not 
want war !" 

This remarkable "proof" was always emphasised in 
early Teuton propaganda. I found great numbers of 
American tourists leaving Germany swallowing it and 
quoting it. To them, of course, it was of no importance 
that the "forty years at peace" statement leaves entirely 
out of account certain Imperial Hohenzollern and 
Hapsburg tendencies denoted by such incidents as Ad- 
miral von Diedrich's affair with Admiral Dewey at Ma- 
nila Bay in 1898, the German methods in the Boxer up- 
rising of 1900, the annexation of Bosnia and Herze- 
govina in 1908 in violation of agreement, the Morocco 
crisis of 1911. Furthermore, there was Germany's war 
with the Hereros in Africa. But perhaps she regarded 
this as butchery and not war. 

While the professors continued to play the old official 



A DUSTY VOLUME IN BERLIN 247 

records, I reached, without rising from my chair, for 
a bulky, yellow-bound volume — a rare volume, but sel- 
dom found throughout the world and even more sel- 
dom read. In that Berlin office it was covered with 
the dust of years. 

I was familiar with its contents. I said nothing ; but, 
wholly absorbed, after having blown from the top some 
of the dust, I read on until called back to the discus- 
sion around me by one of the professor-lawyers shriek- 
ing, "Anybody who says that Germany wanted war is 
a Schweinhund (pigdog)." 

Whereupon the major sought to change the subject by 
remarking, "You seem to have found a very interesting 
book." 

"Just 'a quaint and curious volume of forgotten 
lore/ " I observed, changing from the language of Hein- 
rich Heine to that of Edgar Allan Poe. "Perhaps you 
would like to have me read you a few pages." 

My American friend squirmed uneasily, pulled out 
his watch and suggested that we should be going. He 
knew me and once remarked that if I were lost in Ger- 
many, the most likely places to look for me would be 
behind Streng Verboten (Strictly forbidden) signs. In 
the present instance he feared that I was again about 
to play with fire. 

I was. While the others listened, I read in unemo- 
tional tones and without the slightest comment, three 
speeches from the Minutes of the First Hague Con- 
ference of 1899, relating to the limitations of arma- 
ments as a means towards peace — speeches which made 
a delightful contrast with the statements of the pro- 
fessor-lawyers. 

Here is what I read: (The italics are mine.) 



248 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Colonel Gilinsky (Military delegate for Russia) : 

"The programme of the Russian Government has 
two objects. The first, solely humanitarian, is to dimin- 
ish the possibility of war, but should war take place to 
reduce sufferings to a minimum. 

"The second object is founded upon economic con- 
sideration — to diminish as much as possible the enor- 
mous financial burden which all nations find themselves 
obliged to endure to support armies in time of peace. 

"On the first task, designated commissions are work- 
ing to elaborate the laws and customs of war on sea and 
land. I hope that their work will be crowned with 
success. 

"But may I ask, gentlemen, if the people whom we 
represent at this Conference will be entirely satisfied 
if when we go from here we bring to them a set of 
rules for war and nothing for time of peace — nothing 
to limit the great army of peace which weighs so heavily 
upon the various nations, this army which oppresses 
them to the point that a state of open warfare might 
be preferable to this muffled warfare? 

"This continual competition builds up increasingly 
greater armies, more numerous in time of peace than 
they were at the height of the greatest wars. The va- 
rious nations have been accustomed to support actual war 
only every twenty or thirty years. It is the everlasting 
army of peace which threatens to ruin the nations with 
its steady increase of numbers and frequent changes of 
armaments. 

"Some say, to be sure, that although armies have 
greatly increased, populations also increase, and there- 
fore the burden of expense falls upon an increasing 
number of contributors. Is it not true, however, that 
army increase is out of all proportion to population 



A DUSTY VOLUME IN BERLIN 249 

increase? Indeed, military expense swallows up a 
large part of the receipts of a country to an extent that 
the support of troops in time of peace is becoming a 
burden too heavy to be endured. 

"I have heard it said that money spent on armament 
remains in the country. That may be true for the coun- 
tries who manufacture their own weapons, but even 
for them is there any real advantage for the population 
as a whole? 

"Moreover, the continual increase of armies misses 
its object because the proportion between the forces of 
the different nations remains always the same, for 
when one government increases the number of its bat- 
talions its neighbour makes a proportional increase. 

"These are the facts, then, which prompt my sov- 
ereign and my government to propose a limitation, if 
only for a time, of the increase of armaments." 

Colonel von Schwartzhojf (Germany's Delegate, Mil- 
itary) : 

"As far as Germany is concerned, I can completely 
reassure her friends in regard to war-burdens and re- 
lieve them of all beneficent anguish. German people 
are not bending under the weight of taxation. They are 
not being dragged into an abyss. Quite the contrary, 
with us public and private wealth are increasing, and 
the standard of life is raised from year to year. 

"As to the compulsory military service which is inti- 
mately linked up with this question, Germany does not 
regard it as a crushing burden but as a sacred and pa- 
triotic duty to which it owes its existence, its prosperity, 
its future. 

"Men such as Colonel Gilinsky fear that excessive 
armaments may lead to war. For my part, I have too 



250 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

much confidence in the wisdom of sovereigns to enter- 
tain any such fears. 

"It is impossible for a group of nations to regulate 
any one nations military affairs — which include such 
intricate matters as public instruction, duration of ac- 
tive service, numbers of units, totals for peace and for 
war, military obligations of former soldiers, railway 
systems, and the number and situation of fortifications. 
Each nation must organise itself according to its char- 
acter, its history, its traditions, its economic resources, 
and its geographical situation." 

M. Leon Bourgeois (Head of French Delegation) : 

"I have listened with the closest attention to the re- 
markable speech of Colonel von Schwartzhoff. He has 
forcibly presented the technical objections against our 
adopting the limitations of armaments proposed by 
Colonel Oilinsky. 

"It does not seem to me that in his objections he ad- 
hered to the spirit which has prompted us to gather here. 
Instead he has shown that Germany would support eas- 
ily her military expense while she, at the same time, is 
developing rapidly economically. In this respect I be- 
long to a country which bears just as lightly the personal 
and financial obligations which the service of national 
defence imposes upon its citizens and we hope to be able 
to show next year that we have not hindered our pro- 
duction or our economic prosperity. 

"But surely, Colonel von Schwartzhoff will recognise 
with me that if in his nation and in mine the very con- 
siderable resources devoted to military organisation 
should be devoted in part to peaceful and productive 
activity the well-being of each nation would be rapidly 
increased. 

''We are not here, however, solely to consider our own 



A DUSTY VOLUME IN BERLIN 251 

particular country. Our task is higher. We are gath- 
ered to examine the situation of the world as a whole. 
If we deliberate in this spirit, we shall find, I hope, a 
way to give expression to the thought that the limitations 
of armaments would benefit all humanity. And we 
should thus give to our governments the moral support 
necessary for them to follow this noble object. 

"Gentlemen, the purpose of civilisation, as it appears 
to us, is to supplant more and more the battle for life\ 
between man and man with an agreement among them 
to stand together in the battle against the forces of 
nature." 

The five men listened without a word while I read. 
When I had finished and put the volume back in its 
place, they continued silent until he who had cried 
that any one who said that Germany wanted war was 
a Schweinhund conveniently remembered that he had 
an engagement. Whereupon, we quietly dispersed with- 
out any comment upon speeches that clearly revealed 
which of the great powers was looking forward to war 
some nineteen years ago. 

The truth is that Germany plainly showed her hand 
at the Hague. 

Colonel von Schwartzhoff's subsequent remarks 
showed that he was totally unable to comprehend the 
lofty sentiments enunciated by Monsieur Bourgeois. 
His outlook upon international affairs is wholly differ- 
ent from ours. He is a Prussian Militarist, a member 
of the dominating class of Germany. This means that 
in world affairs he thinks as though his brain were en- 
cased in a high-explosive shell. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE MOTHERS ACROSS TOE SEA 

There is a well shaded path at Potsdam winding 
down from Sans Souci, the simple and charming 
palace of Frederick the Great, to the huge and gorgeous 
palace of the Kaiser. To the left is the historic wind- 
mill with its legend woven about Frederick, and not far 
from this an old woman stands by her post-card collec- 
tion. I was strolling along this path one hot morning 
in the third summer of the war, and paused to chat 
with her a while. I remembered the brisk business she 
did in days of peace and commented on the change to 
the present solitude. She deplored the lack of visitors, 
and then turned to politics. 

"Such a terrible war," she sighed, "and it seems in 
a way the more terrible when we think that the King of 
England conspires against his own cousin. Alas, our 
poor Kaiser!" 

There are unnumbered thousands of different view- 
points of this war. This guileless woman — reared on 
the historic soil of the Hohenzollerns, accustomed to the 
pomp of Court carriages, seeing the railway station at 
Wildpark cleared for His Majesty, and the drill of the 
Prussian Guards on the Bornstadter Field beyond the 
trees — has one of them. 

"And to think that America too does not behave in a 
neutral manner, but makes ammunition for our enemies ! 

252 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 253 

But thank God that she, also, cannot make war upon 

US." 

"Why not V I asked. 

"Wilson and his kind are afraid. There are too 
many Germans in America. Wilson would fear civil 
war." 

She was reciting one of the common beliefs in Ger- 
many, and then went on with the usual "government 
tagged" arguments about the war until I was again 
feeling miserable over what to me was simply one more 
example of the idea chain that fettered the German 
people to the German government. 

For the thousandth time I was filled with resentment 
against the whole system, and was about to explain a 
few points from a non-Germanic angle when she cov- 
ered her eyes a moment, and then brushed away a tear. 
After an awkward pause, I tactlessly asked if she 
had anybody in the war. 

Then came the deluge. Her whole frame shook. "I 
had two sons," she began, and then broke down. Both, 
I learned between sobs, had been killed within a few 
weeks in the battle of the Somme. 

My war logic slipped out of gear for the time, and 
my "explanations" never reached my lips. My heart 
went out to her, for she was a mother, sorrowing over 
the loss of the two lads she had reared to manhood only 
to have them suddenly snatched from her life, now an 
empty life from which hope had flown, with nothing to 
do but stand by her post cards in that peaceful shaded 
nook at Sans Souci and wonder how one cousin could 
be so unkind to another. 

It's a long way from Potsdam to the Bulgarian- 
Serbian frontier. After having been with the Austro- 



254 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Hungarian army against the Serbs, I felt a peculiar 
thrill at the realisation that I was with the mysterious 
other side after a circuitous Balkan journey when the 
wheezing train from Sophia pulled up at the first 
Serbian station of Pirot. 

A battered and tattered collection of soldiers turned 
as they filed into the carriages to their women folks 
who had come to say good-bye. Two tarried at the end 
of the line, a father and son, whose story I learned 
later. The boy limped a little, for his wounded foot 
was not entirely healed. Though all but he had en- 
tered, his mother, saying nothing, threw her arms 
around him as if she felt that by holding him tight 
she might still somehow prevent him being torn from 
her by war's necessity. Not until the last warning "All 
aboard," this time addressed to the lad in her arms, did 
she step back to let him limp after his father. 

A simple peasant woman, her mother's eyes mir- 
rored sharply the agonies of her struggle to stifle her 
feelings, and bravely she waved her last farewell as the 
train pulled out. 

There are thousands of war faces vividly and forever 
engraved on my memory. Hers is one. She had grown 
older than her husband in her life of mountain toil; 
hard work had stiffened her frame and deeply seared 
her face. Immovable she stood on that rough platform 
in the last light of the day, her eyes transfixed to a 
fading carriage window until it curved gently and was 
gone. 

I saw her clench her hands and b^'te her lips fighting 
her feelings to the end in order to be brave when bidding 
all she held dear in the world what might be eternally 
good-bye. One last look into the twilight whence they 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 255 

went, then the agony in her eyes intensified until the 
strain was relieved by a torrent of tears that scalded the 
furrows now grown deeper. The man and the boy were 
merely on their way to fight the Kaiser's big machine, 
but the lonely mother had to totter back to her moun- 
tain home to wait and eat out her heart. 

How strange, I reflected, to find that Serbs have 
human emotions! One might never have suspected it 
after a sojourn in Austria-Hungary. 

Another frontier, swept by blasts of war. I was with 
the Russian rear guard falling back from the last 
corner of the Bukowina into Bessarabia. The retreat 
was so rapid that a few civilians were still in the houses 
along the left bank of the Pruth River. Shells had 
begun to drop into these when a peasant woman, having 
hastily prepared to flee, came out of a back yard pulling 
a little cart in which sat a couple of babies beside a 
bundle of household goods, while behind the cart two 
other youngsters, hardly more than babies, lent their tiny 
strength. The woman struggled toward the road, then 
remembered something and rushed back to the house. 
They seemed out of place, those tots and their shallow 
cart on a stage that was set for war — a stage across 
which wearied infantry dragged their feet, while ar- 
tillery clanked and Cossacks walked their horses in the 
slow rhythm of retreat. I saw all this, but somehow the 
doll-like scene between the moving column and the river 
turned my eyes back as I marched. 

A whistling sound, first faint in the west, grew 
rapidly to a shriek which increased until it abruptly 
terminated in a splintering crash, followed by a black 
column of smoke and earth thrown up from the spot 
where the cart had been. A figure darted from the 



256 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

house. But the forces of the Czar moved ever east- 
ward and the last I saw of that little wayside tragedy 
was the mother groping distractedly on her hands and 
knees on the blackened ground, blood mixed with the 
shredded flesh of her little ones. 

A few nights later, still fighting rear-guard actions 
along the Pruth, we halted at dark in the village of 
Boyan. The night was clear and bitter cold, and I 
was glad to get quarters in a simple Polish cottage. Dog 
tired, I had thrown myself down on one of the two 
beds in the room, when the mother of the family came 
from the adjoining room with her little girl of five 
whom she tucked into the other bed. Before doing so, 
however, the child knelt down to pray while her mother 
helped her with a saddened faraway look in her eyes. 
On the frozen river road I could hear the Russian artil- 
lery clanking and grinding, while in the stable at the 
rear of the house the war horses champed and pawed 
the ground. A sentry shot rang out by the river, an 
Austrian machine-gun tack-tacked on the opposite bank, 
but the child prayed on. Boyan is the last village in that 
corner of Austria-Hungary, and her soldier father 
had been snatched from home at Austria's first call to 
arms. The tide of war had ebbed and flowed along the 
river, leaving the Russian line between the father and 
his home. He might be living, he might be dead. No 
word had come from him. He might even be with 
the attacking force across the river, the force which to- 
morrow might shell his humble Polish home. No usual 
prayer was that prayer of the child, and no wonder the 
mother's eyes were saddened and faraway when the little 
one begged God to save her mamma and the house in 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 257 

which they lived and to bring her daddy back home 
again — soon. 

One of the oddities of the world and of the war is 
that those who do the most usually make the least fuss. 
In the autumn of 1916 I was cutting across the North 
Sea on a little five hundred ton British vessel with six 
soldiers escaped from Germany — all of us bound to- 
gether in the common hope of once more eluding the 
enemy on this last precarious stage of our journey to 
England.* We realised that our chances were not quite 
even inasmuch as five of the nine steamers of the line 
had already fallen victim to the Kaiser's war on the 
shipping of the world. 

Aboard that craft was one woman, acting as table 
steward, her work thus releasing one more man to grap- 
ple — probably in a mine sweeper — with her country's 
enemies. She was leading a life that was rough, thrill- 
ing and perilous even for men, but she did not seem to 
mind it. She worked in a manner utterly unconscious 
of the danger she was running and the good she was 
doing. The way was hazardous, the indirect course tak- 
ing forty hours instead of the fourteen of peace time. 
The little steamer, the plaything of an angry sea, would 
have been uncomfortable at any time, but now it must 
pick its course through waters infested with raiding de- 
stroyers from Ostend and Zeebrugge, with torpedoes and 
with mines. Truly, difficult work for a woman, but 
cheerfully performed withal. 

Yet what we saw of her was only a fraction of the 
part she is playing in the war. We should never have 
learned the rest of the story had I not asked questions 
on the second night which encouraged her to tell it. The 

•"The Land of Deepening Shadow"— Chapter XXVII. 



258 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

cabin table bad been cleared, a table around wbich sat 
with me the three Tommies taken wounded in the Mons 
retreat, the young Belgian who had fought at Liege, 
another Belgian who, protecting himself with glass, 
had crawled through the electrified wire that marks the 
frontier of death between his country and Holland, and 
the French officer — later killed in Macedonia — who had 
tunnelled his way out of Torgua, swam the swift-flowing 
Elba and walked for twenty-nine days across Germany 
to Holland. 

The woman, her work for the evening done, was 
standing just inside the door listening sympathetically 
to every word of the stories of the men when a young- 
ster of thirteen, whom I had noticed doing such odd jobs 
as peeling potatoes, came in, took the woman by the 
hand and said : "Good-night, ma ! I'm tired. I'm go- 
ing to bed." 

She kissed him and he went, and then we learned her 
story. Her husband, the captain of a little ship taken 
over by the Admiralty, had recently died leaving her 
with six children, the oldest of whom we had just seen. 
Faced by the necessity of doing something quickly to 
support them she eagerly accepted the trying and peril- 
ous work in which we found her engaged. But life at 
sea did not comprise all her dangers. She told of the 
Zeppelin incursions over Hull; of how, having every- 
thing their own way for a time in the absence of British 
anti-aircraft protection, they used to hover tantalisingly 
above the city while they rained down bombs with a de- 
liberation that made the inhabitants long to get even. 
"I shall never forget," she said, "one night in particular 
when the stars were shining and the ground was lightly 
covered with snow. Those horrible monsters just seemed 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 259 

to drift back and forth right above my house. My hus- 
band had just died ; and I, with fear in my heart when- 
ever a bomb made the house shake, sat with my children 
around me trying to comfort them. When there was 
silence for a time and the hope within me made me 
feel that they had gone, I would open the door — then my 
heart would sink, the night was so bright and those 
devils still above us. Because we were powerless against 
them they seemed to take fiendish glee in increasing our 
agony by making their bombs last as long as possible. 
But, thank God, times have sufficiently changed so that 
they now throw their bombs quickly and rush away." 

Carrying on, without complaint, buoyed by a moth- 
er's love in her struggle to bring up six children, ashore 
beneath the death skies of the East Coast and aboard 
ship above the death waves of the North Sea she bravely 
did her part for country and for home — did it unseek- 
ing of sympathy for self but ever ready with cheer and 
sympathy for those about her. 

But all beehives and all countries have their drones. 
What a contrast this woman of Yorkshire makes with 
the kind of woman who, disdainful of work since nursery 
days, is content while her country battles for its ex- 
istence languidly to lie in bed in her comfortable 
Mayfair hotel until noon, her only display of en- 
ergy being in sending down complaints to the manage- 
ment about the delay of breakfasts served in rooms and 
the "positively sickening lack of variety of the food." 

Then there is the self-conscious petted young lady 
for whose pleasure the world moves around the sun every 
three hundred and sixty-five days, whose only notice- 
able economy is the saving of matches by lighting one 
cigarette from the last throughout the day. Of course 



260 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

she is not idle. Fluffing up for luncheons, teas and din- 
ners with "dear old things," which, translated, in her 
case means "officers of various grades in the uniform of 
the King" really does take a lot of time. 

Indulgent mamma, of course, smiles her approval 
when daughter entertains the rest at the cafe table with 
pouting complaints over the absence of sugar and abuse 
of the proprietor and the Government because she is now 
limited to a choice of toast or cake. Daughter naturally 
feels that all with whom she comes in contact should 
feel honoured to be allowed to do something for her 
and should feel over-rewarded if she smiles or listens 
four minutes to what they are trying to tell her. War 
has its compensations for her, to be sure. Being chief 
of an army staff offsets, in a way, war's inferior bon- 
bons and saccharine-sweetened tea. After all, daughter 
is not always to blame for her myopic perspective. I 
know of one woman trying to dissuade her daughter 
from doing war work. "How much pleasanter," she 
argued, "if you would hold your court in various West 
end tea rooms with charming officers, as does your 
sister." 

This class of femininity, however, is almost negligible 
in Great Britain to-day. The way in which the over- 
whelming majority of British women are making every 
effort and sacrifice to win the war is one more disap- 
pointment to the war-willing Prussian leaders, who 
when making their plans counted upon dissensions 
among their enemies, not the least of which would be 
that caused by the militant suffragettes. Instead, when 
on one occasion there was labour trouble brewing in the 
shipyards along the Clyde, the women of Glasgow as- 
sured the Government that they would go to work if the 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 261 

men downed tools, an assurance which had the desired 
effect. 

Noteworthy has been the spirit of Britain's aristoc- 
racy to make sacrifices, both of life and treasure. I 
was particularly impressed with a certain Lady X, who 
seemed inexhaustible in her efforts to do everything 
possible for the wounded, but particularly for prisoners 
in Germany. Individual deserving cases got her special 
attention, and she worked as unobtrusively as possible. 
In the old ancestral hall she had twined the British naval 
ensign about a painting in a frame of oak, the likeness 
of a bright-eyed, honest-faced young midshipman, who 
had gone down fighting for home and mother. She al- 
ways paused before this picture of her only son, and I 
saw her sweet face soften sweeter while she gazed lov- 
ingly on the boy in blue. One day as she turned away 
she said: 

"How I loved him — and loving his memory is now 
the bright gem of my life. We must be brave ; it is no 
use breaking down in sorrow. Hundreds of thousands 
of our best must die and millions mourn in silence if 
England is to live. I feel that the way in which I can 
do the most for the boy I have lost is to do as much as 
possible for those who are still fighting the fight for 
which he gave his life." 

She does all she can, indeed. She did not tell me, 
but I know that when she runs below her ready funds 
she will quietly dispose of some rare book from her 
library or some of her jewels in order to help some poor 
Tommy in Germany or his needy mother back in 
Blighty. 

While England was building up her army her homes 
did not suffer to the extent of those of France and 



262 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Germany. In 1915, however, the death lists began to 
swell in the morning newspapers, and high and low the 
war has hit her murderously. By 1918 I found it 
almost impossible to go into a home in which the light- 
ning had not struck. My innocent remark of the tac- 
tics at Neuve Chapelle, for example, would bring ten- 
derness to the eyes and voice of the mother and father 
at table. Their boy perhaps had died on the barbed 
wire, unbroken by the shrapnel of those days. Names 
that used to mean villages in Flanders and Northern 
France but now mean merely points along a zig-zag line 
of shambles and death are to the mothers of England 
shrine names of sadness, sacrifice and glory. From 
France they are linked across the Channel with the va- 
cant place at table and his room, a hallowed place no 
longer used — little things to be sure, but it is the little 
things that give to life its sweetness and endearing 
charm. 

Some mothers seem to suffer less when they know 
with certainty that their sons are dead than when they 
lie awake nights wondering if the son reported missing 
may still be alive somewhere in Germany. While in 
England I got not hundreds, but thousands, of letters 
asking me if I believed that there were secret prison 
camps in Germany. The secret prison camp has been 
and continues to be one of sorrowing England's terrible 
hopes. I was particularly impressed with the great 
number of these letters which referred to the fighting 
at Loos during the September drive of 1915. In most 
of them the parent "knew for a fact" that James was 
only wounded because a comrade had written to that 
effect, but that the Germans had pressed them back and 
taken James prisoner. He had never written from 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 263 

Germany, therefore he must be in some secret camp 
from which prisoners could not write. I hesitated to tell 
such a confiding parent that which I knew to be true 
from my last visit to Germany. I knew that the Ger- 
mans, who had been accustomed to the initiative in 
offence, had blazed in anger and fury when a real offen- 
sive temporarily passed to the other side. I knew that 
this rage manifested itself on the part of German sol- 
diers when they counter-attacked and that lightly- 
wounded James had been bayoneted to death. Some 
unknown common burying pit in France and not a 
secret prison camp beyond the Rhine is the where- 
abouts of the missing lad. 

There is a political side to a mother's grief. One 
day I was introduced to a sweet-faced English mother 
in the Midlands, as a man who had seen both sides. 
"Tell me," she asked eagerly, "are we winning ? That's 
all I want to know. You see," she continued, "I've lost 
three, and the youngest, the only one left, starts for 
France to-morrow." She turned away, then mastered 
her emotions. "It's terrible anyway, but it would be 
unbearable if I thought that we were not winning." 

Why I say that this may be political is this : In early 
1918 during the internecine political quarrel in Eng- 
land in which some papers sought to undermine Lloyd 
George by a series of venomous attacks upon his fitness 
for office, while other papers attacked the army chiefs, 
and the "Trust-the-Kaiser-Pacifists" attacked both, I 
clearly detected the back-fire on the British public, a 
public which had proved itself willing to sacrifice sons, 
brothers and fathers while believing that such sacrifices 
were necessary to win, but clearly developing a feeling 
of unwillingness once they had become convinced that 



264 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

incompetent leadership was throwing life away. Then 
came Germany's mighty offensive, imperilling Britain 
in France but saving Britain at home. Constructive 
criticism in all countries is needful, but if carried to 
the cut-throat stage it may so undermine a nation's faith 
in its leadership that that nation caves in. 

Before the war many English women, entranced, no 
doubt, by pretty uniforms and the German officers' 
professional skill in love-making, married them; but 
even so, most of them have not lost their love of coun- 
try and sad indeed is the lot of those living in a land 
where everything English is villified, obliged to see 
their sons grow up in German uniform. I know of one 
case in the Fatherland where such a son, a mere cadet 
at school, used to talk so violently against everything 
English that his mother occasionally remonstrated. The 
fiery youth told her, in the presence of his German 
father, that never in that house was she to say one 
word in favour of England. Germany is a man's coun- 
try — or, rather, a male's country — so the father natu- 
rally supported the son, with the consequence that the 
mother had to omit war talk, geography and history 
from topics of conversation. The German school has 
a greater influence than the mother upon the German 
youth and to a wonderful extent does it succeed in im- 
buing the young with a jingoistic patriotism which puts 
Kaiser and army above all else in the world. 

Germany has even gone to the extent of capitalising 
the anguish of mothers. During the war the interest 
in spiritualism is spreading rapidly, which gives in- 
creased opportunity to the psychological jugglers who 
trick people with what they call spiritualism. One 
psychic bucket shop on Regent Street in London did 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 265 

a prosperous business until closed by the activities of 
the Daily Mail. One of the assistant mediums was an 
Austrian and the police search of papers disclosed the 
interesting information that all the questions which he 
asked grief-stricken mothers about the units to which 
their sons were attached and all possible military infor- 
mation had been carefully tabulated for transference 
to the Wilhelmstrasse. 

I was standing one summer morning, shortly after 
America had entered the war, in a little one-street vil- 
lage by the railway leading eastward from Bordeaux. A 
bright-eyed French boy of seven was prattling to me, 
when I happened to notice a train of empties swinging 
back west around the bend. I could see chalk writing on 
the sides of the cars, which turned my thoughts to the 
early days when I saw the Austrian troop trains roll up 
to the Serbian front, festooned with flowers and green- 
ery and chalked with, "Down with Serbia," and "Ex- 
press Train to Belgrade." A little later I saw trains 
roll west in Germany inscribed with, "Express Train 
to Paris." 

But those scenes had long ago faded in the grim 
reality of war. No European soldiers were any longer 
in this mood. Too many comrades had fallen, and the 
teeth had become too tightly set. 

There could be only one explanation. After nearly 
three years in warring Europe I was thrilled with the 
thought that the boys from home must have ridden in 
that train. I was sure of it when I could make out "Ber- 
lin or Bust." 

"What does it say?" the little French boy asked. I 
translated that beautiful bit of sentiment and then ren- 
dered for him the next epithet of "Down with the 



266 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Kaiser." At least, that is how I rendered it — for, after 
all, the child was only seven, and "down" expressed the 
direction quite as accurately as the more forcible phrase 
used by the troops. 

"That means the Americans have surely come ?" asked 
the child excitedly. 

I assured him that it certainly did. 

His eyes beamed. "I must run home and tell mam- 
ma," he cried. "Mamma teaches me to pray every night 
before I go to bed to ask God to send the Americans 
soon. Then France will be saved, and papa can home 
home." 

There are mothers braving danger such as those of 
the Bukowina and the blockade runner of the North 
Sea, but most of them are far from the scenes of hos- 
tilities, mourning the lost or lonely for the absent or 
anxiously waiting from letter to letter. From the Black 
Sea to Land's End they suffer for the most part in 
silence, never quite free from fear when they know that 
their sons are in the danger zone or some time going to 
it. A mother is a mother the world over and there is no 
more steadfast or truer love than is hers for her son. 
It matters not whether she rocked him in a Balkan 
peasant hut while she busily plied her loom, or took him 
from the nurse amid tapestry and marble — she will in 
most cases centre her hope in him more and more with 
passing years. Mothers make the character of men, and 
home and mother are synonymous. Cafes, theatres and 
the social whirl have their uses, but it is homes, not 
these, that make a nation great. And it is mighty hard 
for a mother to watch her son grow to manhood and then 
see him hacked down by war on the threshold of life. 

I used to admire Bismarck and I used to admire the 



THE MOTHERS ACROSS THE SEA 267 

German army as the greatest military machine in the 
world. Indeed, in 1911, during the Agadir crisis, when 
I was in Alsace-Lorraine, I caught some of the Ger- 
man military enthusiasm as they eagerly expected that 
the dogs of war would be cut loose on France, but in 
Belgium I began to realise the terrible responsibility 
on the head of a man or group of men deliberately be- 
ginning a war without having exhausted all effort to a 
peaceful solution. 

For three and a half years I have heard the sobs and 
seen the tears of the mothers of Europe and I realise 
that to their grief is now mingled that of the mothers 
of my own country. Their cross of sorrow seems almost 
too difficult sometimes for one generation and if the war 
ends in such a way that they must transfer it to the 
mothers of the next all this misery and sacrifice will 
have been in vain. 

Yet Baron von Freytag, after bloody years of war, 
voicing the sentiment of military Germany, says in ref- 
erence to the next war : 

"Our business is to maintain the fundamental ideas 
of war as they lived in the German army up to the year 
191 If, to soak them in the experiences of the present' 
war, and to make the fullest technical use of these ex- 
periences." 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE DTJG-OUTLESS FEONT 

There are times when some side-question in the war 
comes up which I am able to settle to my own sat- 
isfaction only by a first-hand journey of investigation. 

I recall that at a luncheon in London given by Lord 
ISTorthclifTe in early 1915, a discussion arose concern- 
ing the correct native pronunciation of the Galician for- 
tress city of Przemysl, which was then besieged by the 
Russians. There being nobody immediately available 
to settle the dispute, I proposed that I should start in 
a day or two to learn the pronunciation first-hand. The 
others laughed. But his Lordship, never timid about 
taking chances, agreed to back me in the wager. So I 
started for Przemysl. 

In early 1918 I heard varied opinions among the Ex- 
peditionary Forces in Italy as to why the enemy had 
not bombarded Venice. His lines were only thirteen 
miles from the city, and Dunkirk was shelled at twenty. 
Some, regularly opposed to the Vatican, said it was due 
to the Pope's influence — which they cited as evidence of 
his connection with Austria. Others, regularly uphold- 
ing the Vatican, also said it was the Pope's influence — 
which they cited to prove his interest in things Italian. 

I went to Venice, presented myself to the Admiralty, 
and asked if I could go out in the lagoons to the posi- 
tions nearest the enemy in order to see for myself the 

268 



THE DUG-OUTLESS FRONT 269 

methods employed in this out-of-the-way bit of front 
with its combination of land and water fighting. 

An Italian naval officer, pointing to a military chart, 
explained: "That long, narrow strip of land separat- 
ing the lagoon of Venice from the Adriatic and running 
northeast between the two main mouths of the Piave, is 
the enemy's direct road to Venice. Towards the ex- 
tremity is a bridgehead, with the Austrians fan-like 
about it. The men defending this bridgehead are, to 
be sure, enfiladed, but for them to give way would re- 
sult in the enemy securing positions on the island which 
would in turn enfilade the east of our line. His main 
purpose, of course, is to batter through the mountains 
between the Brenta and the Piave, and take our whole 
river line on the flank. In the meantime, however, we 
must prevent him from working down the lagoon, which 
would have the further result of Venice being within 
reach of his nine-inch guns and perhaps his six." 

As the naval officer thus described the extreme east of 
the front, the booming of the guns never let us for- 
get that Venice was within the shadow of actual war. 
While he was speaking with admiration of the sailors, 
acting as soldiers, holding that most advanced and im- 
portant bridgehead, I remembered that the American 
Consul had mentioned to me earlier in the day that he 
had a large chest of tobacco and sweets for distribution 
— a remembrance which presented a plan to my mind. 
An idea had occurred to me when the naval officer said, 
"Within reach of the enemy's nine-inch guns, and per- 
haps his six." "What of his twelves, fourteens, and 
sixteens?" I thought. 

Secondly, I had been growing increasingly interested 
in Italian psychological traits as affecting the war. 



270 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Ancient Rome has long ago passed away. The mod- 
ern Italian is young, not old. The mass of the people 
impressed me with their kindly spirit and their suscep- 
tibility to influence — which makes them easy dupes of 
any kind of propaganda, — their appreciation of inter- 
est shown in them, and their readiness to return favour 
for favour. I refer of course to the mass of the people, 
and not to the professional tourist-scavengers who in- 
fested the Amain* drive and other beaten paths in peace 
time. 

I had found Consul Carroll at Venice among the best 
of the many excellent men of our consular service whom 
I have learned to know and respect. Some of them car- 
ried out their duties under most trying conditions in 
the Central Empires in a manner which merits the grati- 
tude of our country. Mr. Carroll has earned a wide repu- 
tation in Northern Italy for his ever-helpful activity 
during the months when the fate of the nation swayed 
in the balance. I was not surprised, therefore, when he 
unhesitatingly accepted my proposal that we should try 
to make our way to the bridgehead and personally dis- 
tribute cheering packages to its defenders. 

I told him that members of the Italian Government 
had expressed to me the hope that America would see 
her way clear to send some troops to Italy for the stimu- 
lating effect that it would have upon the native soldiery. 
I remarked that this was a world of comparative values, 
and that it would be interesting for us to observe how 
we should be received among a picked body of troops 
who would realise that a couple of Americans had vol- 
untarily risked their lives to go out to them because they 
believed in them. 



THE DUG-OUTLESS FRONT 271 

The Admiralty agreed to my proposition and provided 
us with a swift naval launch. 

Venice has always been a magnet for tourists, for 
whom it has a kind of Arabian Nights' fascination. I 
last had seen it in the early summer of 1914 while on 
my way to Austria. It had a charm all its own on a 
night of carnival, when the canals teemed with the 
shadowy outlines of gondolas of pleasure and romance, 
and the windows of the hotels and palaces along the 
Grand Canal blazed brightly, while across the spark- 
ling waters were wafted notes of melody from floats fes- 
tooned with myriads of lights, gliding gently with the 
stream. 

Yet infinitely more magical did I find this dreamland 
when not music, but the roar of the guns, was borne 
upon the waters. All windows were heavily shuttered, 
partly that no ray might guide the raiders from the sky, 
and partly because this city of 150,000, plus tens of 
thousands of visitors, had now shrunk below 50,000, 
most of whom stayed at home in the evening to huddle 
over whatever little fire they could muster. To stroll 
alone through miles of silent empty streets and stygian 
passageways, along and across canals rippled only by 
the winter wind, with the flood of cold moonlight silver- 
ing into chiselled detail the bridges, marble columns, 
arches and delicate tracery of a deserted Fairyland, was 
to feel the sublimity of the architectural genius of an 
age when Eastern trade and beauty went hand in hand. 

One morning, just as dawn was breaking, the Consul 
and I in our naval launch were cutting the waters of 
the Grand Canal. We could still look back at the Cam- 
panile, pencilled against the sky, when we passed under 
forts whose huge guns bellowed above our heads. A 



272 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

little farther we threaded our way among rafts from 
which six-inch naval guns sent their shells hurtling 
over us so close that the rush of air seemed to pick up 
our craft and sweep it forward. 

We left the launch at a point where the Austrian 
trenches curved down to the canal not far ahead. We 
were on the island between the Old Piave and the 
Piave, the last long strip leading to our bridgehead goal 
— a barren flat formed from the silt brought down from 
the river and the sands washed up by the sea. Along 
the uneven roads of this flimsy land, dotted with a few 
flimsy pinkish houses, Italian sailors were moving am- 
munition slowly forward on carts drawn by horses, 
mules, donkeys and oxen. We got the start of these, 
however, in a motor-transport which staggered along 
the road toward the shells bursting ahead. 

We had entered the "dug-outless" front. Like a coral 
island it seems to float; for if you dig down in most 
places, you need turn only a few shovels to strike muddy 
water. Consequently, the Italians have to make most 
of their cover by filling sandbags and piling them up 
on the surface. The low ridge of dunes is the chief solid 
exception, and its possession by the enemy would prove 
a long-range bombardment menace to Venice. The 
Austrians on the mainland have firmer terrain, but not 
firm enough for the concrete foundations necessary for 
their heavy howitzers. In artillery duels the Italians, 
with their movable raft-batteries, have a decided advan- 
tage. That, and not the Vatican, or Austrian good in- 
tentions, is the secret of why the guns have not been 
trained on the Pearl of the Adriatic. 

That the enemy want the island badly is constantly 
evidenced by the activity of their artillery, and the de- 



THE DUG-OUTLESS FRONT 273 

termination of their attacks on the bridgehead. By an 
interesting coincidence they selected the morning of our 
coming for one of their heaviest artillery bombard- 
ments. With shells bursting behind and on both sides 
we jumped from the lorry, which we left in a clump of 
scraggy trees, and zigzagged on foot across a papier- 
mache country where most of the sentries had nothing 
more substantial for shelter than windshields of woven 
straw. We were sorry to be forced to abandon for the 
time our chest full of tobacco and sweets. 

We are now on the beach opposite the Cortellezo 
bridgehead, but cannot venture on the short, narrow 
path leading to the first line, as this is being potted with 
six- and nine-inch shells, while directly ahead the rows 
of houses between us and the enemy are toppling in 
clouds of smoke and dust. 

A lull, and we take a chance on the shell-pocked path 
to the bridgehead. A whistle from the left and another 
from the right and we realise first-hand the hardships 
of troops holding the handle in a spread-out fan of 
enemy batteries. We reach with relief the mud and 
water pits of the first line, and crawl up to the most 
advanced machine-gun box, from which we peer out to 
where Austrian dead lie scattered under mulberry trees 
like leaves raked into heaps. The foremost lies on his 
face, with his outstretched hand still gripping the bomb 
that he had been about to throw. 

I took note of the sailors about me. Like all those I 
saw that day, their spirit seemed equal to any in the 
world. Here and outside in the rear they were scratch- 
ing and sandbagging themselves into a semblance of 
security, while beside us the machine-gunners were shav- 



274 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ing the nearest enemy trench, with such a lively joy in 
their work that to watch them was invigorating. 

The Consul explained that we had brought some 
comforts to them, which would be fetched from the 
dunes whenever the foe became a little quieter. The 
men showed us with pride the stores of bombs and 
ammunition captured the preceding night in a raid. 

It was a pleasure to see their appreciative expressions 
when we told them that, as citizens of their great ally 
from over the sea, we were thrilled with their stub- 
born defence of this out-of-the-way front. We spoke of 
how all the world loved Venice and would feel ever 
grateful to them for blocking the foe's attempt to reach 
it. I told of how I was thrilled in Rome a few weeks 
before, when the citizens poured into the streets, despite 
the gloom cast by the terrible retreat, to sing and cheer 
America's declaration of war against Austria-Hungary, 
the official act which ranged us at Italy's side. 

The little group in the advanced pillbox, like all the 
men with whom we had talked that day, seemed anxious 
to show the measure of their appreciation of our com- 
ing. One of them handed the sturdy Consul the helmet 
just taken from a prisoner, whereupon I peeked out 
through the machine-gun slit and jokingly remarked 
that I would crawl around into the orchard and get 
the one off the dead man lying just outside — a feat 
which I considered impossible in daylight and one upon 
which I had not the slightest intention of embarking. 

After we squirmed back to the first 'trench we made 
our way into a well-propped dug-out which had weath- 
ered the storm of the shelled house that had crashed 
down upon it a few hours earlier. We were sipping 



THE DUG-OUTLESS FRONT 275 

coffee in this comparative security, when a tall, hand- 
some, olive-skinned lad from the South, entered with' his 
captain. He had been standing near me and under- 
stood my remark about the headgear, whereupon he had 
obtained permission to risk his life by wriggling out 
for it. His dark eyes danced with pleasure as he handed 
me the helmet from the orchard of death. 

I regretted deeply that he had thus risked his life, 
but later I viewed his act in a larger light. I realised 
the terrible crash at Caporetto had not sapped the spirit 
of such a man, and I felt, too, that there was not a 
"quitter" at the bridgehead or in the shell-swept flats 
behind. 

I had been up and down the whole of the Italian 
battle-front. I had seen the people before, during and 
after the retreat, and I had seen politicians in Parlia- 
ment halt in time on the road to national ruin, when 
Perolini, the Republican deputy, and Federozoni, the 
National deputy, appealed to all parties to lay aside 
their quarrels for the rest of the war. They succeeded 
in forming a new party of 150 deputies to be known as 
the "Group of National Defence," pledged to no poli- 
tics but the winning of the war. I realised that a new 
Italian spirit had grown out of the great retreat, and 
I left the country with the firm conviction that the Ital- 
ian army was absolutely sound. 

The stimulus which American troops would exert 
upon it, however, is of tremendous importance, and 
one that we can not afford to overlook. Aside from our 
loyalty to our ally, there are two important reasons 
why our whole war effort would receive a serious setback 
through a defeat in Italy. In the first place, the forces 



276 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

of the Central Powers would occupy the fertile valley 
of the Po, from, which they would draw food. They 
would also secure some of the best skilled labour in the 
world from Milan and other Italian cities. 



CHAPTER XIV 



THE FKIGHTFULNESS MOON 



I was talking one day in 1916 in Berlin with an 
American diplomat whose duties brought him to 
many capitals, when he took cards from his pocket, 
handed them to me and said, "Those two invitations 
concretely represent the dominant ones and the domi- 
nant differences of the England and the Germany of 
to-day." 

The first, an invitation to the monthly American Club 
luncheon in Berlin, had as a postscript, "Bring your 
own meat and bread ticket." The second, an invitation 
to a Savoy party in London, said, "There will be a full 
moon that night." So changing, however, is the war 
that in 1918 the comparison no longer holds. It con- 
tinues to be necessary, to be sure, for the German and 
his food tickets to be inseparable companions, but the 
same is true of the Englishman. As for the moon, the 
announcement above would be the worst possible ad- 
vertisement to lure the Londoner to evening revelry. 

Air raids on England — a definite part of German 
war policy — have gone through two acts and are now in 
the third. The first of these, the Zeppelin act, began 
April 14, 1915, and may be said to have come to an end 
late in November of the following year. Germany had 
things pretty much her own way for more than a year 
over England. Then the tide turned, and rapidly. Of 

277 



278 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

the thirteen targets which the Germans offered on the 
night of Sept. 2, 1916, Lieutenant Leefe Robinson 
knocked down one at Cuffley, near London. Three 
weeks later the Germans sent twelve and lost two. 

This did not make pleasant reading in a land whose 
people had been educated to believe that the Zeppelin 
could win the war. 

In the announcement of the loss of the three airships 
I witnessed in Germany yet another example of how 
the Government ladles out news to the lamb-like popu- 
lace. There was no German official statement of the 
loss, which was broken to the people in a much more 
artful manner. On each occasion a paragraph report- 
ing the loss was "lifted" in Holland by the Wolff Tele- 
graph Bureau from the London Daily Mail and circu- 
lated in the German press. Thus the Government could 
not be accused of withholding the loss, while at the 
same time this manner of breaking the news was at 
least gentle, inasmuch as the German people have been 
taught that the Daily Mail always lies. 

A few days later, on Oct. 1, the British knocked down 
another, and in the next raid, Nov. 27, they brought 
down two more. Not long before Count Zeppelin had 
boasted that the "Zeppelin season" would soon begin. 
It certainly did in England, using the expression as it 
is used of grouse. Defence had clearly overtaken offence 
and "unser wunderbarer Zeppelin" had ceased to be a 
real factor as a raider. 

For the sake of appearances the German admiralty 
made a few spasmodic attempts upon the English coast 
during 1917, but they resulted in little damage, as the 
raiders turned back at the first warning of danger. On 
October 19, however, a flock of Zeppelins drifted over 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 279 

the coast with engines stopped, then picked up and one 
of them succeeded in drifting across London and drop- 
ping bombs, one of which wrecked a principal square. 
But the Zeppelins had flown so high that when a gale 
arose they had become unmanageable and at daybreak 
were manoeuvring over France, where five of them were 
destroyed. The tremendous loss almost caused the Zep- 
pelins to be forgotten until they made two raids on suc- 
cessive nights on England's east coast in March, 1918. 

Thus the Zeppelin, which the Germans of all classes 
assured me would bring England to her knees, had killed 
in London 175 people, whereas during the same period 
951 were killed in ordinary street accidents. 

Its real function is scouting for the fleet, not bombing, 
and that extremely important function it continues to 
perform. 

The English had little time, however, to bask in 
safety from air raids. There have been spasmodic aero- 
plane raids on England throughout the war, but on 
May 25, 1917, the curtain rose on the second act of the 
thrilling melodrama, "Raiding England." 

In the late afternoon of that day 16 aeroplanes swept 
over Folkestone, knocked most of the main street to 
pieces, killed 75 and injured 174. On June 5, 18 
aeroplanes made a daylight raid on the Thames valley, 
and then on June 13, in the full brightness of the morn- 
ing, a raiding squadron cruised over London. I watched 
it from the roof of a Mayfair hotel, and so high were 
the raiders that I could see nothing but the silvery sheen 
of their machines as they caught the glint of the bright 
June sunshine. This raid caused the heaviest losses 
of any in London, 160 being killed and 429 injured. 

By way of variation, the Germans tried Harwich on 



280 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

July 4, where they killed 11 and injured 36, and then 
on the 7th switched back to London. With an audacity 
that evoked our admiration, 22 German aeroplanes flew 
over the city that Saturday morning at such low alti- 
tude that the natives looked up and admired them, be- 
lieving them to be British. Considering the number 
of people in the streets, it seems miraculous that only 
GO were killed and 192 injured. During the rest of 
July and August daylight air raids on English coastal 
towns continued, but once again defence overtook of- 
fence, and the increase of British air squadrons at home 
brought the second act of the big air drama to a close. 

On the night of Sept. 4, I was in a railway train 
bound from the South coast to Waterloo Station, Lon- 
don. The long-standing order that all train blinds 
and shades be drawn after sunset had recently been can- 
celled, inasmuch as the air-raid alarm system had been 
well developed and the lights could be extinguished by 
a central control. On this occasion they were extin- 
guished at Surbiton, twelve miles from London, and we 
ran slowly toward the great darkened goal of the raiders 
across a country silvered by the moon. Ahead the guns 
began to bark and the shrapnel fragments were thudding 
about us as we crawled into the black, deserted station. 
The buzz of propellers overhead followed by two heavy 
crashes across the river in the direction of Charing 
Cross, crashes of duller and deeper note than the barking 
of guns, proclaimed that the British capital was fac- 
ing a new proposition. The curtain was being rung 
up on Act III, an act played in moonlight, the most 
dramatic and terrible act of all. 

We are still in this act and likely to be until the end 
of the war. After a couple of dress rehearsals in April, 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 281 

1017, the German managers made it part of their regu- 
lar programme when they sent one machine over moon- 
lit Kent on Sept. 2. Incidentally this happens to he Ger- 
many's great holiday of Sedan. On the following night 
half a dozen aeroplanes flew over Sheerness and Chat- 
ham, where they succeeded in killing 109 and injuring 
92. The show was staged at London on the following 
night, from which date advertising matter containing 
the bait of "moonlight night" was scrapped. 

At the next moon the Germans were busy as hornets, 
and six nights out of eight they buzzed above the city. 
"But," you may ask, "is not the damage done compara- 
tively slight? Is it of any military value?" Let us 
examine this whole question fairly, for it is an impor- 
tant factor in the war. 

In the first place up to April, 1918, air raids on Lon- 
don have resulted in death to 530 and injuries to 1,7 1G. 
In other words, the people of London have suffered cas- 
ualties totalling three one-hundredths of 1 per cent. If 
living at the front were as safe as this the war would be 
a picnic. As for property damage, London is big and 
the visitor would need a guide to show him the places 
hit. 

Nevertheless, were I to dismiss raids on London with 
the above statistics and remarks I should be utterly 
misleading. In the first place, consider the amount 
of war material tied up in England in the nature of 
defence against hostile aircraft. In order to stop day- 
light raids it was actually necessary to bring planes 
back from France, where they are sorely needed along 
the lines of battle. Thus half a dozen enemy planes can 
tie up more than 100 British planes, inasmuch as the 
latter must be divided into groups to cover a number 



282 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

of localities in order not to be surprised anywhere. 
Furthermore anti-aircraft guns with their ammunition 
supplies and the crews to man them are planted through 
eastern and southeastern England. On the periphery 
of London, indeed, the guns are almost as thick as at 
the front. 

There is only one way to deal successfully with moon- 
light raids and that is not to aim directly at the raid- 
ers but to throw up a barrage ahead of them through 
which they cannot pass. Think of the enormous expen- 
diture of ammunition required to maintain a curtain 
of bursting shrapnel hundreds of yards wide around the 
biggest city area in the world. A solitary German 
Gotha reaching the outer defences of London in the 
moonlight can cause an expenditure of ammunition that 
would make some of the great battles of other wars sound 
like skirmishes. Early in 1918 London had developed 
such a barrage. Daring raiders can occasionally jump 
the shrapnel screen, to be sure, for a dash across the 
city, but the contest is much more even than when the 
Germans had everything their own way. 

So much for the material side of the matter. Now 
for the human. Again I remind my American readers 
that warring Europe after four years of Titanic conflict 
is a world apart from that which still is ours. Geo- 
graphically we are outside the acuteness of the struggle. 
Both sides in Europe stagger under the battering and 
the question resolves itself upon endurance. The Ger- 
mans work with method. To tie up material is impor- 
tant, but their intention is to do more than that. Moon- 
light carnivals of f rightfulness are a definite and de- 
liberate part of their plan to break down English and 
French morale. 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 283 

You have probably read that bomb-dropping on Eng- 
lish towns does not disturb in the least the equanimity 
of the cool, collected Englishman, except that in some 
cases it has aroused him to a more determined effort 
against the enemy. Far be it from me to accuse the 
English of panic during air raids, for such an accusa- 
tion would be absolutely untrue. On the other hand, ice 
water is not a substitute for red blood in the veins of 
the Englishman to an extent popularly supposed. Feel- 
ings and emotions he has in abundance, but he has less 
of them bubbling on the surface than many other 
peoples. 

Early in the war, when the continent seemed a place 
remote from his insular security, the Germans lent a 
hand to the recruiting sergeants by sending over the 
Zeppelin, but the war has long since been brought home 
to England, with the result that air-raids are no longer 
needed as a stimulant to a realisation of its realities. 

The Englishman is not such a cold-blooded personage 
that he is indifferent to being turned into a mass of 
jelly by a bomb, or to having his skull battered in by a 
jagged lump of shrapnel descending with terrific ve- 
locity from a height of two or three miles. With a bar- 
rage so extensive as that of London it is obvious that 
the deluge of death from British shell fragments makes 
taking cover imperative. There is no more bravery in 
remaining unnecessarily out of doors during a raid 
than there is in a soldier pushing his head over the 
parapet through curiosity. The world's sternest teacher 
has long ago painfully eliminated both practices. Now, 
when the warning is sounded in the British capital the 
effect is not unlike that of a gun fired among jack-rab- 
bits, which sends them scurrying to their holes. 



284 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

This brings us to another phase of the raid situation. 
One bright blue day the "take cover" signal boomed 
over London, causing the business of the world's big- 
gest metropolis to come promptly to a standstill. Work- 
ers of all descriptions took refuge in lower stories and 
basements. Shipping and freight consignments no 
longer moved, with the result that goods missed trains, 
with a consequent dislocation of programme on the 
other end. 

As a war correspondent just returned from the Con- 
tinent I felt it my journalistic duty to remain in the 
street to study the situation. I walked along Fleet 
Street and the Strand, uncanny now, for the throbbing 
heart of London had ceased to beat. A few moments 
ago these famous arteries of life were teeming with 
traffic and streams of men and women. With the first 
alarm the buses tore along like racing machines until a 
tube station was reached, where driver, conductor and 
passengers descended to safety. I saw lines of empty 
buses on silent, empty streets, whose life was the oc- 
casional belated pedestrian hurrying to reach some 
friendly shelter ere the breaking of the storm. I turned 
down to the Embankment, where the open stretch along 
the Thames afforded a longer sky-line; there I gazed 
to the east, but nothing came out of the blue and filmy 
distance. After more than an hour the magic wand of 
"All Clear" breathed life once more into London 
streets. 

What happened? A German raiding squadron had 
crossed the high chalk cliffs of the Kentish coast headed 
up the valley of the Thames. London got the warning, 
but in the meantime British aircraft had turned back 
the invaders. Noiv, because there were no casualties 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 285 

in London and no buildings wrecked is it accurate to 
say that there was no damage done? What about 
2,000,000 workers knocking off work for an hour? This 
war is one of men and machinery at the front and the 
organisation of whole nations behind the front, conse- 
quently in such a war a loss of 2,000,000 hours, a con- 
siderable percentage of which should be devoted to war 
work, cannot be left off the debit side of the ledger. 

And daylight raids are child's play compared with 
those of the moon. During one period of activity in 
the autumn of 1917 many of the munition works near 
London closed down for five nights. Can this be left 
out of consideration in the rush of both sides to heap 
up a superiority of material ? » 

Furthermore, what of the wear and tear on the com- 
munity ? AlthougL the chance of any given building be- 
ing hit in London is infinitesimal, you want bigger odds 
when you are gambling with death than when you are 
playing poker or bridge or investing in lottery tickets. 
Most citizens of London have seen plenty of first-hand 
evidence of the destructive power of a bomb. In one 
of the moonlight raids in the autumn of 1917, for ex- 
ample, a bomb dropped in the Bloomsbury district. 
Next morning the passers-by saw a great hole before a 
well-known hotel, the front of which was bashed in. 
Two granite columns, a foot square, were snapped off 
like pipe stems. There was blood on the sidewalk and 
blood inside the door, for three people had been killed 
outside and four inside. For a hundred yards up the 
street and a hundred yards down the street every win- 
dow was shattered. 

The morning following a raid in late January, 1918, 
Londoners in the vicinity of Covent Garden saw some 



286 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

40 mutilated bodies being taken out of a basement. The 
place bad been marked, "Shelter During Raid," and had 
proved but a death trap. Such sights quicken the im- 
agination and make people dread the chance that what 
happens to others may happen to them. Thus the Eng- 
lishman, having seen what bombs could do, takes them 
more and more seriously. There is an exodus from the 
city with the growing of the moon, an exodus so great 
that all accommodations in neighbouring villages and 
towns are eagerly snapped up. The Government has 
commandeered so many hotels in London that the re- 
mainder are congested most of the time, but during the 
period of moonlight there are plenty of rooms to be 
had. 

Most of the people, however, cannot leave London. 
They make up their minds to bear it and do so ad- 
mirably. Outside the entrance of the tubes women 
stand hour after hour, in many cases with babies in 
their arms, ready to descend to safety should the alarm 
sound. A mother who stays most of the night in a tube 
or a town hall basement watching over her children, and 
then takes her place at dawn in a food line in order to 
be one of the first to be served, is up against the reali- 
ties of war to an extent undreamed of by her American 
sister. Furthermore, even though John Smith may 
suffer no fear, the fact that he is kept awake by the 
guns several nights at a stretch in time impairs the 
maximum efficiency of his day's work. Germany knows 
all these things, hence her persistence in attacking great 
nerve centres such as London and Paris. 

For obvious geographical reasons the Allies cannot 
harass civilian Germany with any given effort as can 
the Germans harass them. Nevertheless, I have seen 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 287 

an abundance of evidence that the only way in which 
the Allied Governments can maintain the morale of 
their raided populations is for the people to feel that 
adequate measures of defence are being taken and that 
the enemy is being paid back in his own coin. All of 
which means that the United States, Great Britain, 
France and Italy cannot for a moment relax their ef- 
forts to secure the mastery of the air. 

During Verdun and the Somme Germany was out- 
classed in the air and smarted under inferiority. The 
German airmen were content to stay behind their own 
lines, while the French and British dashed over them 
to observe, photograph, drop bombs and give battle. 
Many a time did I hear the German officers in a "sour 
grapes" tone of voice say "Die Franzozen sind frech." 
("The French are impudent.") 

But the German leaders are a commendably deter- 
mined set of men, and they resolved to increase their 
output to the utmost limit. Even in the fourth year 
of the war they were advertising in the newspapers 
for waste land near big cities suitable for aviation 
training grounds. Gradually they caught up again at 
the front and have now and then forged ahead ; indeed, 
my own front experiences convinced me that in early 
1918 they came over the Allies' lines at least as much 
as we went over theirs. Observation balloons are an- 
chored a comfortable distance to the rear and they are 
knocking down plenty of these. One day at Verdun, 
while crouching in a shell-hole on the right bank of the 
Meuse, I forgot the lively artillery duel for the moment 
in watching a German airman dart from his group, 
swing over my position and make straight for a big 
"sausage" anchored a considerable distance away. As 



288 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

he flashed above it a tongue of flame leapt from the 
balloon, followed by a huge mass of fire floating slowly 
in the sky. Down from the drifting furnace a streak 
shot toward the earth. Then a parachute opened and the 
daring and quickwitted observer could go up some other 
day. 

Nowhere have I seen the human side of air raids 
enacted more graphically than in Italy. One day in 
late December, 1917, after the Italians had turned 
successfully at bay on the Piave a squadron of enemy 
battleplanes essayed the grey afternoon light for a 
long detour over the Italian lines towards Treviso. 
Italian and British airmen rose to give them battle and 
after the smoke had cleared away eleven of the visitors' 
planes lay wrecks on the ground. I witnessed a dra- 
matic incident during this fight, when a German plane 
descended in flames. When it touched the ground the 
wounded aviator stepped from it with his clothing on 
fire and would have burned to death had not a couple 
of Italian soldiers rushed up and wrapped their coats 
about him. 

Apparently the enemy resolved to get even for this 
11 to defeat, for he immediately selected the cities 
of northern Italy for some of the most violent bombing 
of the war, the time-mellowed city of Padua being 
picked as the chief target to be strafed. 

For six nights out of eight his machines came over, 
staying an hour on each of the first two nights and six 
hours on subsequent nights, all the time raining down 
bombs with impunity. 

The second night I was at the telegraph office filing 
a dispatch to London describing the raid of the first 
night, on which occasion the enemy deliberately hov- 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 289 

ered over the residential and cafe centre of the city in 
order to spread terror. I had been at the railway sta- 
tion, a legitimate object, but not a bomb fell near it. 
On the second night, just after I had handed in my 
telegram, the lights suddenly went out — something 
which causes a feeling akin to approaching seasickness 
to the initiated — then a scream from the warning siren, 
and the first bomb struck outside of the city. 

For an hour Padua shook, and when there was silence 
for a few moments I sauntered out into what seemed 
at first to be the most wonderful moonlight that I had 
ever seen, but which I soon realised was caused by the 
seething furnace of the burning dome of the Carmini 
church. It is interesting to note that this church was 
built in 1250 to commemorate the termination of the 
cruel Hohenstaufen rule from the north, and that now. 
after all these centuries, raiders from the same north 
had come and gone in the night, leaving this beacon 
to mark their ruthlessness. 

As I approached the church I heard the shrieks of 
frenzied women whose homes had been destroyed by 
other bombs which had fallen in the neighbourhood. One 
of these, stark mad, picked up the family dog following 
at her heels and held it against her eyes to shut out the 
sight of her ruined home. Her madness seemed the 
more terrible because of the weird, fantastic scene. 
Padua is a pearl of the centuries of long ago and the 
light of this old, historic church, turning the canals and 
the old arcaded buildings rising from them into a splen- 
dour of magic sunset light, produced an effect unlike 
anything that I have ever seen. I wondered what I 
could do to comfort the woman, when an Italian airman 
limped by me and went up to her. As he put his arms 



290 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

about her neck I turned away — for the mad woman was 
that fellow's mother. 

I moved on to where a building just opposite the 
church had been hit so that the back had crumbled in 
completely, while the front seemed ready to fall if a 
good-sized splinter were pulled out from one of the 
prop beams. Beneath the wreckage a man was pinned, 
face downward, the weight on his legs and spine. The 
agony which he suffered almost drove him mad and his 
shrieks cut me like saws and knives. A fireman was 
about to attempt to crawl through to him with a glass of 
water, when a priest came across from the church, took 
the glass of water, explained that he was going to crawl 
through to give the last rites to the doomed man, and 
turned majestically with a motion for the few onlook- 
ers to step back, which we did, until the sparks from 
the crackling dome fell upon us. We watched the 
priest crawl amid the wreckage until he could extend 
the water to the lips of the sufferer, then we saw him 
hold up a crucifix. We saw no more. There was a 
grinding crash, the building toppled and became the 
tomb of the priest and the man for whom he had risked 
his life. 

On the next night the moon, relentlessly beautiful, 
again rose dazzling bright and flooded the landscape 
with glittering silver. Padua, a compact speck com- 
pared with London, girdled with a mirror of canals, 
awaited the bombardment of the third successive night. 
No tubes, as in London, no deep cellar refuges, no wide 
area to magnify the chance of not being hit. For three 
days the civil population had been streamirjg southward, 
but it would be many days before all could go. Eight 
o'clock struck and the waiter in the almost deserted res- 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 291 

taurant rubbed his hands uneasily, as my war corre- 
spondent companion and I tarried over the final course. 
There is a peculiar feeling in the war zone that where 
you are not if always a safer place than where you 
happen to be. Thus did the waiter continue the nervous 
rubbing of his hands. 

I crossed the deserted street to war correspondents' 
headquarters, where five of us could sit out the raid, 
while we affected a nonchalant air, which, to be hon- 
est, I didn't feel, and I don't think the rest did. No 
doubt we should discuss, as on previous occasions, such 
irrelevant subjects as the histrionic abilities of Sarah 
Bernhardt. I looked up at the moon and hated it, the 
same old moon which at other times and in other climes 
would inspire and make life more beautiful. But here 
it was the moon of death. 

The chimes of nine had mellowed and gone. Then a 
hush, as all lights died at the touch of a central control. 
The blood-curdling siren shrieks, and the first heavy 
bomb rocks the ancient city. An hour of concentrated 
hell, then a lull, and the people flock unbidden from 
their homes. Blanched women, tottering old men, they 
form a great procession, which moves solemnly through 
the arcaded streets to the mighty basilica of St. An- 
thony, where in a shrine repose the bones of Padua's 
patron saint. 

With bowed, uncovered heads they stand, a huge, 
black mass, crowding the square before the Santo, their 
eyes aglow in the light of the moon and the light of 
the tongues of flame darting up into the night. A streak 
across the moon, another blood-curdling shriek from the 
siren and the supplicants scatter. Then a blinding flash 
and a thousand clanging foundries crash together in the 



292 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

hastily deserted square. A 200-pound bomb whistles 
through the air. The Basilica is sprayed and pierced 
with flying metal. But the people of Padua have not 
lost their faith, for they comfortingly explain that 
though the Basilica was hit and partly ruined, a miracle 
preserved the shrine of St. Anthony itself intact. 

The cathedral was struck the same night and the 
whole huge front crashed into the square; in fact, 
Padua's treasures of ancient buildings, monuments and 
art during that awe-inspiring week beneath the January 
moon were rapidly becoming memories instead of links 
with mighty centuries that have forever rolled away. 

I was particularly impressed one morning upon turn- 
ing a corner in the Santa Lucia district, after six hours 
of bombing on the fifth night, to come upon a ruined 
house with a bit of the back wall standing, containing 
a stone with the following inscription : 

"LET THE CENTURIES RESPECT 

THIS EDIFICE OF 

EZZELINO BALBO 

ERECTED 1160." 

The centuries had, but the Germans had not. I say 
Germans because it was they in their Gothas who have 
been making the moonlight incursions of death above 
the cities of northern Italy. It is worthy of note that 
the Vatican protested against the bombing of Padua's 
treasures. The Austrians did not come, but the Ger- 
mans, though they were moving their star line-cracking 
storm battalions from the Italian front to northern 
France, left their bombing planes behind to carry on 



THE FRIGHTFULNESS MOON 293 

the campaign of spreading terror and breaking Italian 
morale. 

I have found an impression in America that the 
enemy have generously spared Venice. I am inclined to 
thank the constructions of the city, with its multitude 
of canals, that not greater damage has been done, than 
thank the enemy for generous motives. Fifty-three air 
raids on Venice from the beginning of the war until 
late August, 1918, hardly stand as evidence of enemy 
intentions to spare the Adriatic's brightest gem. On 
February 26th, for example, 300 bombs fell upon the 
city. Thirty-eight houses were smashed, the Royal 
Palace was struck, one wing of a home for old men and 
women was blown to pieces and three churches were 
damaged — those of St. John and St. Paul, St. Simon 
the Less and St. John Chrysostom, in which an altar 
with one of Cellini's last landscapes was wrecked. It 
takes only twenty-five minutes for a squadron raiding 
Venice to return behind the Austrian lines, load up with 
bombs and come back to the work of destruction. 

Venice will wear through the coming centuries the 
scars of this. In an earlier raid the Scalzi Church on 
the Grand Canal was destroyed, 'with its gorgeous fres- 
coed roof by Tietolo ; a white stone five yards from the 
doors of St. Mark's records the place where another 
bomb just failed to smash to fragments these golden By- 
zantine mosaics, which cannot be carried off to a place of 
safety. During one raid fifteen bombs fell near the 
Doges Palace, all of them, fortunately, into the water 
of the lagoon a few yards from the edge of the Riva del 
Schiavoni. One missed by very little the Bridge of 
Sighs. Ten bombs fell around the Rialto Bridge on 
both sides of the Grand Canal. It is interesting to note 



294 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

that the street named by odd historical coincidence the 
Calle de Tedeschi, or "Passage of the Germans/' was 
heavily damaged. 

Whether in northern Italy or in Paris or London, the 
intention of the German is the same. He designs his 
air raids partly to tie up men, guns and shells, but in 
this psychological stage of a nerve-breaking war which 
has now dragged almost to the length of our civil war, 
his chief design is to batter down the morale of our 
allies. It is worthy of mention that in his efforts to in- 
crease his airplane output he has scrapped the shrine 
of the great god Zeppelin at Friedrichshafen on Lake 
Constance and converted it into airplane manufacture. 

Nothing but the combined efforts of the Allies, with 
the full utilisation of the manufacturing possibilities 
of the United States and its great reservoir of some of 
the finest aviator material in the world, can overcome 
this tremendously important arm of the Kaiser's gi- 
gantic military machine. Indeed, by the spring of 1919 
the air initiative will almost certainly have definitely 
and overwhelmingly passed to the Allies. 



CHAPTER XV 



THOU SHALT KILL 



I was in Sabac with the Austro-Hungarian forces in 
the opening campaign of the world-war, Personal 
inclination, or a magazine editor, or fate, or something 
had dropped me into Austria on the eve of the strug- 
gle. I was seeking the out-of-the-way places among 
Bosnians, Magyars and Gipsies in a lone journey of ad- 
venture and investigation. I saw the war-clouds loom 
up on the frontier of Serbia, and I turned into them 
rather than away from them. I had credentials which 
enabled me to exist among the forces of Francis Joseph 
for a time. The war was in its infancy, and official- 
dom had not yet properly regulated war correspondents. 

I was in the shambles of an overgrown village. The 
blood of both armies, mingled together, still clotted 
the dust in the streets, and the wine from broken casks 
and bottles flowed in the cellars, soldiers wading in it 
up to their knees. 

I turned a corner into a byway, deserted save for an 
unter-offizier just ahead of me. An old woman, bent 
and shrivelled, tottered from a whitewashed mixture of 
mud and thatch, saw the enemy soldier, hesitated and 
started back, then changed her mind, turned, and sink- 
ing to her knees extended her arms for mercy. 

The unter-offizier drew his sabre — still a relic of war 
— and swaggered up to her. 

295 



296 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

A picture of misery, she knelt before him in the white 
dust, her eyes wide open in terror, her white locks 
escaping the yellow sash around her head, her bony 
arms pleadingly held out for mercy. 

I was filled with resentment that the creature in uni- 
form, with his apparently perverted sense of humour, 
should seek to frighten her. "A little tenth-rate stage 
play and magnanimous pardon," I thought. I was mis- 
taken. The sabre whistled and slashed the outstretched 
arms, and the wild death shriek of the woman cut me 
like saws and knives, as I turned away bewildered. 

I came face to face with the man a few minutes later. 
He was not drunk. Nor did he look like a wildman 
from the hills. He was Viennese, the kind of man that 
I had seen on scores of occasions, lolling in a cafe, mild 
and gentle as a kitten. He looked mild and gentle now. 

There is a cause for everything in this world. Some- 
times it is obscure, but it exists, none-the-less. The ma- 
jority of people simply accept incidents and events as 
isolated actions. There are others, however, who look 
deeper. To them the mere fact that something has hap- 
pened, is not so important as why it has happened. In 
this mood I approached the licensed murderer, explained 
my status, told him that I knew his country, and had 
liked its charms, which made me the more disappointed 
that he had acted as he did. 

"It was entirely unnecessary," I said. "Why did you 
doit?" 

"She was a pig-dog Serb," he replied, "an enemy of 
my country. The Serbians have been trying to cause 
trouble in my country. They have brought about this 
war. I have seen many of my comrades killed. Per- 
haps that woman was the mother of some dog that killed 



THOU SHALT KILL 297 

some of them. If the Serbs are all wiped out, they will 
make no more trouble. So you see I did my duty." 

And he uttered this conclusion in a manner that 
si lowed him satisfied in his conscience that he had done 
what was right. 

Three months later I visited the American hospital 
in Munich, a hospital for German wounded run on funds 
collected in the United States. In one of the rooms 
I talked with three convalescents, all of them getting 
on well enough to be on their feet. In those days I was 
still making up my mind from a first-hand comparison 
of both sides as to the merits of the war. I chatted 
pleasantly with the three men, particularly with one 
of them — a short, stocky chap, who was of a much more 
talkative nature than his companions. I was actually 
saying to myself that surely this fellow could be guilty 
of no atrocities. He seemed so good natured. But a 
story which he insisted on telling, despite the efforts 
of the nurse to hurry me along, caused me to alter my 
opinion. 

"We Germans stand no nonsense, Herr Korrespond- 
ent," he began. "I will tell you something to let you 
know that we mean business. It was so funny. In the 
early days I was with our company on the march in 
the Vosges Mountains when we came to a wood at noon. 
While we were casting about to eat our mid-day meal, we 
came upon a French priest concealed in the bushes. 
Our officers quickly decided that he was a spy and to 
please us men after we had eaten, they turned him over 
to us and told us to dispose of him as we saw fit." 

The man's eyes glowed with the memories called up 
by the story. "We tied a rope around his neck," he 



298 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

continued, "and threw it over the limb of a tree. This 
done, some of the boys pulled on the rope, and the 
priest's feet left the ground. Then one of my comrades 
rushed up and thrust his bayonet into the priest's stom- 
ach, crying, 'So die all enemies of the Fatherland !' 
The rest of us being near, also began to jab him with 
our bayonets while he went higher and higher as the 
others pulled on the rope. Then we had a jumping 
contest as we cried, 'Higher! Higher!' to see which 
one of us could be the last to stick our bayonet into the 
priest." 

I make different deductions from these two stories. 
The one of the priest shows sheer brutality in the nar- 
rator and those of his companions who acted and thought 
as he did. It furthermore reflects unfavourably upon 
the officers who condoned it, even though they did not 
order it. Apparently they knew their men sufficiently 
well to be aware of just what sort of post-prandial 
amusement would delight them most. 

Hacking the old woman in Sabac contained a germ of 
difference. In it, I realised later, I had witnessed my 
first war-time example of the fruits of German educa- 
tion. The code is that anything done in the name of 
the Fatherland is correct. A man can be educated 
in a certain way so that he will wipe out "crawling ver- 
minous pests of his country" with as little compunction 
as a farmer would rid his field of potato bugs. 

I have seen enough of this phase of war-psychology 
to fill volumes. It finds its greatest expression in the 
scientifically fostered hatred of the Germans for the 
English. Early in the war, I once asked a German 
school girl if she thought it would be right for a Zep- 
pelin to go over London and kill women and children. 



THOU SHALT KILL 299 

She opened her eyes in amazement that I should put 
such an absurd question. "Why not ?" she exclaimed. 
"Anything is right against the English." And she 
looked perfectly sweet when she said it. 

At the end of the first week of October, 1914, while 
crossing Germany, I had a wait of an hour at the busy 
railroad junction of Lohne. Antwerp was likely to fall 
any day, the war was young, and the passengers wait- 
ing on the platform for various trains, talked of nothing 
but German victories, past and future. 

A train rolled in from the direction of Cologne, and 
when those on the platform saw the car windows filled 
with British prisoners, most of whom appeared to be 
wounded, they clustered around it like flies. An ugly 
feeling quickly developed at sight of the English, while 
abuse flew thick and fast from wildly-gesticulating ci- 
vilians who were permitted to go right up to the win- 
dows. 

A German unter-offizier who formed one of the guard 
aboard the train came out, and, standing conspicuously 
upon the car steps, cried,. "Do you know what kind of 
enemies we are fighting ? Well, I will show you. This 
is what they use against brave German soldiers in order 
to tear and mutilate their bodies. Do you see these?" 

He held up a clip of cartridges whose steel noses had 
been cut off so as to expose the lead beneath. "These 
are dum-dum bullets !" he cried. 

It was natural that the onlookers should be enraged 
at sight of bullets which would leave a German soldier 



*© J 



"With a big blue mark on his forehead, 
And the back blown out of his head." 



300 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

The platform became an uproar. Some struck with 
their canes at the Tommies standing in the windows. 
Unable to reach the prisoners from the outside, one man, 
brandishing his stick, rushed into the train, while the 
unter-offizier stepped deferentially aside. He was fol- 
lowed by another, and then another. I could see men 
and women spitting on the prisoners until some of these 
were leaning out of the windows again, because of the 
pressure in the corridors within. 

In the excitement I talked hastily with two of these, 
but was interrupted when the engine whistled to go 
ahead, and the train was cleared to pull out through 
a jeering crowd. The spectacle of seeing prisoners 
beaten — particularly wounded men — had not been edi- 
fying, but in the beginning I partly excused the Ger- 
mans on the ground that they had great provocation 
in the visible evidence of the dum-dum bullets. 

In my brief conversation with the two Tommies, 
however, I had learned a detail of which the crowd was 
ignorant. This little detail was that the exhibitor of 
the dum-dums had taken clips of perfectly good cart- 
ridges from the prisoners and had the audacity de- 
liberately to mutilate them before their very eyes. 
They hoped that the journey would soon be over inas- 
much as the unter-offizier performed the same act every 
time the train stopped. 

What I had witnessed was undoubtedly a volun- 
tary piece of work in the hate campaign against 
England. The idea probably originated with the unter- 
offizier and not with the German Government. That 
the latter was not likely to object, however, is evidenced 
by the fact that the usual stringent platform regula- 
tions were suspended, while the higher officers in charge 



THOU SHALT KILL 301 

of the train did nothing to keep the crowd under con- 
trol. Discipline is so rigid in the German army that 
the unter-offizier would not have dared take a chance 
without the support of his superiors. 

Some of my readers may remember the surfeit of 
spy stories and execution stories of the first month of 
the war. There were so many exaggerations that later 
when spy executions became only occasional events, most 
people began to feel that all the stories were myths. 
This is not true. The spy-wave of the first few weeks 
in the Central Powers is a definite link in the Ger- 
man chain of war-making. 

Four years ago I wrote of how I was taken out in 
the moonlight in the Hungarian mountains behind 
Brasso by a band of Szeckler peasants who had decided 
to shoot me as a Serbian spy. For a long time I sim- 
ply attributed their attempt to an over-zealous and 
terrified mood, but with the passing of months and 
years, I discovered in Germany that the affair was far 
more than a mere isolated personal experience. 

In the first four weeks of the war, something over 
four hundred Germans and a considerable number of 
Austro-Hungarians were shot as spies by mistake. The 
shootings, let me add, were not official — although this 
is cold comfort to the shootees. 

One day in Bremen, for example, an excited patriot 
pointed to a workman repairing the wiring on a high 
roof opposite the Rathaus. "Look !" he exclaimed, "he 
is sending wireless messages to Russia." The over- 
whelming desire to do something for his beloved Father- 
land impelled him to fetch his rifle, with which he 
took deliberate aim and dropped the workman to the 
street. When he later explained to the police that he 



302 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

thought he was shooting a dangerous spy he was dis- 
missed. 

Automobilists in the rural regions led a particularly 
perilous life. Among the many rumours agitating the 
Teuton mind was the widely-credited yarn that France 
was sending gold to Russia in automobiles through Ger- 
many. That the German people believed this absurdity 
furnishes us with some criterion of their state of mind. 
Numbers of farmers, most of whom were members of 
shooting Vereins, used to sit at crossroads, rifle in hand, 
to challenge automobilists. Indeed, in a great number 
of cases, they sniped suspected ones. 

The authorities not only permitted this, but en- 
couraged it. Always practical they decided that a 
device which sacrificed a few hundred subjects was a 
good device if it increased the war spirit of many mil- 
lions. So they placarded Germany with rewards for 
spies, which they said filled the Fatherland. They 
did this for two reasons. First, to add conviction to 
their charges that a ring of jealous enemies had brought 
about the war, and secondly to arouse the anger of the 
people. Indeed, hatred is considered by the German 
leaders to be the motive force in empire building. 

I was so impressed with the significance of this that 
I described it in detail in my earlier volume. As time 
goes on, I feel its significance even more. The German 
peoples, with some notable exceptions, are submissive 
to authority and easily led. It is my belief that they 
could have been led along good paths just as readily 
as along bad. 

Without going into archaeology and genealogy — 
which might be needlessly confusing — we can take as 
the most conspicuous exception a type of Prussian 



THOU SHALT KILL 303 

found in Berlin and eastward. It is this type which 
dominates the rest — a type with neck and cranium ap- 
proximately the same diameter and heavy jowls nearly 
twice as broad. He is a Hindenburg, not a Goethe, a 
Schiller, a Mozart, a Strauss, an Ehrlich or an Anton 
Lang. The type is seldom seen among Americans of 
German descent, since it had little occasion to leave 
the land it dominated. 

Most human beings are a combination of the animal 
and the spiritual; with civilisation tending to sub- 
ordinate the animal. In the dominating Prussian caste, 
however, the animal is always the master — which ex- 
plains why this type believes in force and respects only 
force, and is totally unable to grasp certain psychologi- 
cal traits in other people. During its migratory stage 
in remote ages it probably lost its sense of humour some- 
where in Masurian bogs. It is only because the major- 
ity of the Germans have fallen under the sway, physical 
and thence moral, of the brutish minority that they have 
become a menace and not a helpful neighbour in the 
community of nations. 

For three generations the growing millions of Ger- 
many have been moulded by the "blond beast" of 
Nietzsche. If the process continues, for three or five 
or ten generations, they can not escape being irretrieva- 
bly coarsened, however much mechanical efficiency they 
may develop. It is this which caused one lovable 
South German professor with whom I confidentially 
discussed the matter to express his deep-seated convic- 
tion that his countrymen can be saved in the higher 
sense only through a defeat which will obliterate the 
fetish of militarism. 

The hate lectures which I heard delivered by Ger- 



304 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

man professors were not casual fragments of oratory, 
but a studied part of the plan to make warriors of all 
Germans through the instrument of education. In their 
leaders' conception the world tends towards pacifistic 
decay, a decay in which "Thou shall not kill" becomes 
an ever clearer guiding post. Therefore, in their opin- 
ion, if one nation can preserve the old instincts of battle, 
it can conquer the rest. That is why I never expect the 
present leaders of Germany to exercise any great re- 
straint upon their subjects' giving vent to their pas- 
sions when among their enemies. 

Linked closely to all this is intimidation, a quality 
which not only persists in Germany but is being further 
developed. That it long ago had official sanction is 
especially clear from the Kaiser's speech at Bremer- 
hafen on July 27, 1900, to his troops departing for 
China to suppress the Boxer uprising. 

"You now go forth to fight against a well-armed and 
cruel enemy. When you come in contact with the 
enemy, strike him down. Quarter is not to be given. 
Prisoners are not to be made. Whoever falls into your 
hands, will be at your mercy. 

"Just as a thousand years ago the Huns, under the 
leadership of Attila, gained a reputation by which they 
still live in historical tradition, so may the German 
name be known in such a fashion in China that no 
Chinaman will ever dare again look askance at a Ger- 
man. The blessing of the Lord be upon you! The 
prayers of the whole nation and my earnest wishes ac- 
company each of you. Open the path for culture once 
for all." 

Fourteen years later I heard my first details of the 
massacre of Louvain — and I got them not in Belgium, 



THOU SHALT KILL 305 

Britain or in France, but in Germany. At noon, on 
the 2d of September, 1914, an American friend and 
I went into the open court of the Zollernhof restaurant 
after the wildly-cheered Sedan Day procession had 
passed down Unter den Linden. We managed to 
jump into two seats in the crowded restaurant at a large 
table, and were soon in conversation with the Germans 
gathered at it. The war was in its infancy, Germany 
seemed irresistible, and consequently nearly every Ger- 
man insisted upon airing "war secrets" with every one 
with whom he came in contact. 

One of the men took a letter from his pocket, which 
he proudly read. It was from his son and written be- 
fore the authorities realised the importance of tighten- 
ing up the censorship at the Front. All details were 
set down in an interesting, boyish way from the time 
the company entrained at Berlin until the time it was 
billeted at the Rue de la Station in Louvain. The 
lad then went on to describe how the company was 
aroused after dark and told that Belgian civilians were 
killing German soldiers in the street. They were then 
assigned a definite nearby district in which they were 
ordered to round up from cellar to garret every male 
from fifteen to sixty. These were taken to the square 
before the Station where the boy saw some of them 
shot. He believed that many more of them were shot 
later. "It seemed terrible, father," he concluded. 
"But our officers said it was more humane to be strict 
at the beginning and by making an example of a few 
towns the rest would more readily obey." 

Some apologists for Germany say that there are 
ruffians in all countries and in all armies. Granted, 
but we should distinguish between a Government which 



306 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

aims at ideals and seeks to diminish criminal tendencies 
among its people, and a Government which in itself is 
criminal. The nation with the first may have consider- 
able house-cleaning to do ; but, at any rate, it can work 
towards the highest civilisation. On the other hand, a 
nation led by criminals can not escape becoming de- 
based unless it develops a new kind of leadership. 

Suppose for example that the President of the United 
States went over to Hoboken and made a speech to de- 
parting troops after the manner of Wilhelm's "Huns- 
of-Attila" speech! Suppose that one of our ambassa- 
dors brought forth in the course of a war such as this 
irrefutable accusation that the President and his Cabi- 
net, in connivance with another power, had deliberately 
willed the war and were entirely responsible for it! 
Suppose that to further their selfish ends they planned 
murder and arson among nations at peace with us! 
Suppose that our governing officials wished to remain 
in the good graces of some small neutral nation while 
at the same time they considered it advantageous to 
sink the ships of that nation ! In order to do both they 
would smile into the faces of the little nation's diplo- 
mats while behind the backs of these they would order 
their sailors to destroy so completely the neutral vessel 
and its crew that there would be no trace left upon the 
land or the sea to tell of the crime — this despite the 
fact that in all history of war up to the twentieth cen- 
tury there is not a single case of a neutral ship being 
destroyed by a belligerent on the high seas. Suppose 
in short that the American President and his Cabinet 
had committed act after act which resulted in most of 
the world being leagued against us! Knowing this, 



THOU SHALT KILL 307 

would we back up such a set of officials and perpetuate 
their policy? 

Consider this question well, for the overwhelming 
majority of the subjects of the Hohenzollerns are still 
answering it in the affirmative. They are doing so 
partly because they are duped, partly because they 
have grown "patriotically" calloused to the rest of 
mankind, and partly to escape the staggering taxation 
consequent upon defeat. Such is, our enemy. 

There are some well-meaning souls among us who 
feel that though Germany should be defeated we should 
strive to enable the German people to escape the ter- 
rible-financial burdens of the war, once they see the 
error of their ways. If such persons can devise any 
practical method of combining the two, their place is 
at the head of a new kind of natural laws and finance. 

If a man who became an inebriate at twenty swears 
off at thirty, he has done something commendable and 
hopeful in the change. The remainder of his life will 
be better for it. But can he logically expect that the 
change of heart will automatically enable him to be 
unaffected by ten drunken years ? By a parity of rea- 
soning can the German people leap joyously into a war 
which promises early victory and abundant loot, destroy 
and kill until they realise that they have bitten off more 
than they can chew, then cry quits and expect to start 
life again as if nothing had happened? Unless they 
win sweepingly they cannot do so even though all the 
nations that they have forced to pour out blood and 
treasure in self-preservation should wipe the slate clean 
of the bill against them. 

Most of the belligerents will be reeling under a war 
debt with the coming of peace, with the attendant in- 



308 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

ternational complications of settling gigantic foreign 
loans. The Germans, however, boast that their money 
has circulated in their own country — that they merely 
owe themselves. Very well. Let us take the hypothet- 
ical extreme of a defeated people refusing to pay 
themselves. Suppose they should throw the whole Em- 
pire into the melting pot and transform a highly mili- 
taristic socialism into a highly organised peace social- 
ism. Or, falling short of such an extreme, suppose 
that the German people some day merely rid themselves 
of the international outlaws who rule them and so lib- 
eralise their institutions that they no longer plot destruc- 
tion and dissension abroad ! In brief, suppose they de- 
velop some kind of a democracy that doesn't need con- 
stant watching with a gun ! 

Then will certain circles of I-told-you-so's in England 
and America insist to the rest of us that it was the Ger- 
man people themselves who effected the change, and 
they will probably add that if we had but trusted them 
to arrange their own affairs, we might have been spared 
rivers of blood and torrents of tears. 

For myself I have seen the Empire on the march and 
I know that a change from within can only be stimulated 
by a force from without such as the world has never 
known. Should the change come, I shall rejoice. But 
I shall insist upon giving the credit to whom credit is 
due. 

I would turn back through memory's galleries to look 
upon men and women toiling in clanging foundries and 
beehives of Allied war-activity ; and I'd see mile on mile 
of trenches where men live and suffer and die. For 
week on week I would cheer the returning troops could 
they all tramp past in grand review ; and I would stand 



THOU SHALT KILL 309 

with uncovered head while after them the miles of 
lorries filled with human wreckage rolled. But in 
honouring the living I would not be unmindful of the 
dead. Beneath many skies I saw them march away, and 
I saw them fight ; and in fancy I would wish to see 
them once again as they rise in hosts from the slime 
by the Yser river and the slopes above the Meuse. 
From Poland's plain to Picardy I would see them all 
and in reverence bow my head. And I'd see, too, the 
men that went down in the little ships that swept the 
sea lanes clear. 

It is upon such as these and not upon the people of 
Germany that gratitude should be heaped with the 
breaking of the dawn. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE QUICKSAITOS 

The Imperial German Government has spun its 
web of informants around the globe; yet despite 
its unbounded sources of information it has committed 
calamitous blunders on seemingly simple points. It 
has heaped up statistics concerning the material of other 
nations, while it has blindly insisted on ignoring their 
temperaments. 

Were the world solely materialistic Germany would 
have won decisively because of her early scientific ex- 
ploitation of all things tangible. She has failed to win 
because her conduct has aroused moral forces sufficient 
to stimulate the creation of enough material forces to 
balance her own. She will lose when we have further 
increased our material forces until they overbalance 
hers. Since, in the nature of the case, it is physically 
possible for us to do this, Germany's obviously sane 
course would be to try every device which might reduce 
our stimulus to create. 

In the fifth year of an exhausting struggle it is nec- 
essary for both sides to plan every move with the studied 
consideration of the expert in chess. Neither can af- 
ford a really bad play now. There must come a time 
when the German leaders will see themselves reduced 
to a limited number of possible moves ; and at such a 
time a Prince Biilow would prove infinitely more dan- 

310 



THE QUICKSANDS 311 

gerous to the Allies than a Tirpitz or a LudendorfF. 
The main trend of an indefinite period of history may 
conceivably be determined by whatever type of man 
is in the graces of the Kaiser at the last great forking 
of the road. 

In considering Germany's chances let us take the 
hypothetical case of William II visualising both sides 
through eyes that have looked on both in Europe and 
America. Suppose that through such vision he could 
so completely deprussianise himself that he could un- 
derstand the soul of other peoples. Suppose that he 
could lay aside for the time his bombastic Deity part- 
nership utterances and some night in the long grey 
palace by the Spree calmly weigh up his chances after 
silence had fallen on Berlin, a silence broken for him 
only by the hob-nailed measured footfalls before the 
black and white striped sentry box outside. 

From my own observations I would have him weigh 
his chances thus: 

I have at stake two mighty heritages — my Empire 
and my House. Always have I earnestly sought to en- 
hance the power of both ; so to link them that they would 
be inseparable, invincible. It may now be wisdom for 
me to limit the one that I may increase the other. Let 
me consider the chief weapons of the war that I may 
compare mine with those of my enemies as they exist 
in this fifth autumn of the struggle. These are first, 
military, which includes the army and the navy; sec- 
ond, economic strength which enables each side to hold 
out; third, diplomacy, the instrument for maintaining 
unity at home and creating dissension abroad. 

Neither side can win through the first until it has a 



312 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

preponderance of men and material. Such preponder- 
ance might not only be gained by positive increase, but 
in a negative way by impairing through blockade the 
economic life of the other side. My enemies can con- 
tinue to develop their striking power from the reservoir 
of the United States, while my only remaining source 
is Russia. Conditions there are such, however, that 
they do not permit me to add to my military machine 
sufficiently to enable it to bring victory through great 
offensives. The Russians who are willing to fight for 
me are few. To dragoon great numbers and put them 
into the line would be to transfer Tannenberg to the 
Western front — save that it is the enemy who could 
hang out the flags. 

For defensive purposes, on the contrary, the Rus- 
sians are highly useful in the colossal work they can be 
directed to perform in the rear of the fighting. By 
utilising them and other impressed labour we can 
strengthen line behind line of defence which must be 
successively stormed by my enemies under heavy losses, 
while their advances must always be over country which 
we have devastated as we fall back. 

If we could for a long time successfully maintain a 
stubborn defence we could undoubtedly continue to sink 
more of Britain's tonnage than she can replace, even 
though construction of world tonnage somewhat exceeds 
destruction. This accomplishment of my U-boats must 
arouse bitter thoughts among an island people whose 
world greatness is the sea. Coupled with this the heavy 
losses piled up by the enemy in attacking our fortified 
lines would be distasteful, especially to the French who 
now see clearly the importance of man power in the 
industrial and commercial struggle after the war — a 



THE QUICKSANDS 313 

struggle into which each nation will be driven in order 
to survive the leaden heritage of Armageddon's debt. 

Such enemy discomfort is for us the brighter aspect. 
There is indeed a darker side. Can we continue a long 
successful defence ? If we were economically but little 
inferior to our enemies, yes. But unfortunately we 
have long since fallen to a level far below them. Utilis- 
ing every scrap of material, native and imported, we 
have been enabled to hold out. But should the limit 
be reached we may crack rapidly owing to the fact that 
we shall have used up all our reserves of various sup- 
plies. It is the economic shortage which causes me 
most anxiety, for in a material way it is certain seri- 
ously to cripple my armies in the race for preponder- 
ance of military machinery, while at the same time it 
slowly impairs the morale of the troops and the civilian 
population — a morale maintained only through hope of 
ultimate victory. The terrible truth is that we are like 
a walnut which is slowly decaying inside. The shell 
is still strong but we must give it the appearance of 
even greater strength to our enemies. 

Since I now see clearly that for the present, at least, 
we can no longer conquer in all directions, it is well to 
face this bitter realisation to ascertain what I can still 
hold and the concessions which I must make to hold it. 

Herein lies a difficulty which is not generally under- 
stood by an outside world which is prone to look upon 
me as absolute and therefore able to switch the whole 
empire along any desired course. Unfortunately this 
is not entirely true. Like my ancestors I have ruled ab- 
solute through the good-will of my great military Junk- 
ers. I am always able to oppose and crush any individ- 
uals among them, but it would be calamitous to attempt 



3 H THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

to obstruct any line of national policy upon which they 
are collectively agreed. They are so dominated by the 
spirit of rule by caste that they will fight to the end to 
maintain their ancient privileges. They will be suc- 
cessful, as always, unless there comes a time when my 
subjects' hopes begin to wane in the deepening shadow of 
defeat. The masses may then be goaded to demand two 
things — first, a real share in the government, and then 
a definite statement of peace terms. 

Because of such possibility it might be well not to 
delay too long. One of my great fears is that my Junk- 
ers may obstinately refuse all concessions to the people 
to the point that our unity would be broken in the last 
stages. If, however, they should agree to equal suf- 
frage in Prussia there would probably be but little real 
change in our method of government as it affects world 
policy. Bavaria has equal suffrage, and have not her 
sons fought just as fiercely as my Prussians to extend 
my frontiers ? Are there any, — with the possible ex- 
ception of my most learned professors, — who have 
hurled more violent tirades against the English than 
has Crown Prince Rupert of Bavaria ? Or could any- 
body defend more ardently my divine right to rule than 
Reichskanzler Hertling, a Bavarian? 

So, too, in the matter of the rearrangement of Reichs- 
tag districts according to population. By this conces- 
sion our class power would be slightly impaired but not 
seriously damaged — always provided that we maintain 
the Bundesrat* (which is appointed by myself and my 
co-sovereigns) and do not make ministerial offices sub- 
ject to real control by the Reichstag. 

I fear that nothing short of an early impending de- 

* See chapter II. 



THE QUICKSANDS 315 

feat would cause my Junkers to see the light sufficiently 
to make these concessions. Yet if they should do so in 
time and with grace my people would be so flattered 
that we should have a new period of that unity which is 
essential to success. Moreover, important circles among 
our enemies would receive the impression that Germany 
had accomplished great strides towards democracy — an 
impression which should make some of our subsequent 
moves far less difficult. 

Behind this smoke cloud of democracy we could com- 
plete the plans for our diplomatic offensive. At this 
point looms another great internal difficulty. My Junk- 
ers and my Great Industrialists are so imbued with one 
highly developed trait of the bull that in the more deli- 
cate manoeuvres they are hopelessly lost. That trait 
is the lowering of the head once an objective is sighted 
and crashing unswervingly at it. This method is often 
annihilatingly successful, but from now on it will spell 
disaster for us if persisted in. 

Both my Junkers and my Great Industrialists desire 
a peace with conquests and indemnities and will fight 
for it to the end, unless they can be made to see in time 
that the people will not support such plans when the 
grip of our enemies becomes too tight. Another of my 
great fears is that they will refuse to modify their ex- 
treme demands until we have little left to bargain with. 
Most of Junkerdom always feared the growing power 
of Russia and wished a war which would so cripple her 
that not only would our own great landed estates in the 
east of Prussia be secured, but new acquisitions could 
be made at the expense of Russia. This is an industrial 
age, however, and the Great Industrialists in the past 
score of years have begun to develop a power in the 



316 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Empire which is becoming even greater than that of 
the Junker. Now, although the former like the Junkers 
wish the East they insist also upon the West. While 
the semblance of a chance of victory remains they will 
refuse to yield the occupied iron districts of France, 
also Belgium with the coast of Flanders. 

If, however, we can put our internal house in order 
regarding war aims we can next consider by what prac- 
tical methods of strategy we can out-general our enemies 
on the field of politics. We have some very bad cards 
and some very excellent ones. Our trunk line of pol- 
icy must be to gain control of the East. 

In any event we shall be first in trade with Russia, 
for our geographical and other natural advantages will 
insure our pre-eminence. We can do this with fair 
trade. But we desire very much more than fair trade. 
We must enact commercial treaties with the several Rus- 
sias which will compel the people to buy necessities 
from us at our prices. The East will make German 
economic strength convalescent until it becomes the old 
strength which will encircle the globe. 

The very opposite -of this would be the realisation 
by the enemy of President Wilson's aim that all Poland 
be reconstituted with a Polish port. I wonder how 
much sentiment there is in America for such a pro- 
gramme? There is certainly little understanding of 
it among the majority of the people. Why, even the 
compilers of their school geographies unwittingly helped 
us by invariably printing the word P-O-L-A-N-D across 
only a corner of Russia and having none of the let- 
ters fall on the map sections marked Germany and Aus- 
tria. Therefore most Americans have grown up una- 



THE QUICKSANDS 317 

ware that the majority of the population of certain 
regions of Germany and Austria are Poles. 

We will of course fight to the last to prevent being 
dismembered to form a united Poland. This is a de- 
cidedly more important matter with us than the reten- 
tion of Alsace-Lorraine. I agree with Bismarck when 
he said: "Any arrangement likely to satisfy Poland 
in the provinces of West Prussia and Posen and even 
in Silesia is impossible without the breaking up and de- 
composing of Prussia." 

I do not expect the extremity of such a peace, but 
on the contrary one which will enable my people to ex- 
ploit Russia, gradually in the beginning, but ere long 
almost wholly. 

Trade resumption prospects with the western world 
are alarming and the outlook would indeed be black for 
us if all our enemies could stand as a unit against us 
in commercial matters until we yielded to their de- 
mands. But this is a practical world of business rivalry 
between individuals and between nations. By utilising 
this sufficiently we should soon have our present enemies 
bidding for the German market for their raw materials. 

In the matter of peace terms each side can make an 
offer which the people of the other side would insist 
be accepted by their leaders rather than make further 
sacrifices. In other words each side can draw a line 
beyond which its enemy would not fight, such a varying 
line of course with the changing phases of the struggle. 
The stronger our power of resistance appears to the 
other side at any given time the more favourably for 
ourselves can we draw this line. Had we not forced 
the United States into the war we could have set a much 
better line than we can from now on ever hope to set. 



318 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

Of our mistakes in policy that has been by far our great- 
est. We made it because in 1916 our privations had 
become so great that my people began to grow dis- 
couraged and troublesome to such an extent that a gen- 
eral apprehension arose that in a war of endurance we 
could not last as long as our western enemies. As events 
have since transpired we see that from our position in 
the trough of the waves we overestimated the height of 
the crest upon which they rode. Though we knew that 
Russia was growing powerless we did not foresee that 
she would fall impotent so precipitately. We fur- 
ther did not realise that our propaganda was gnawing 
so deeply into France — as evidenced by the breakdown 
of the Craonne offensive in 1917. We were also sur- 
prised when Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer con- 
fessed that the Allies would be in financial difficulties 
were it not for America's entry. 

But greatest of all we did not remotely realise that 
America could be a factor in the war. To antagonise 
her was our supreme blunder. We should have sent 
more hymn books and less bombs. Until she came into 
the war Europe was divided into two pieces of sand- 
paper, each trying to wear down the other. Had we 
been less sweeping in our U-boat decree and been merely 
content to nibble away at shipping we might well have 
convinced our enemies that they were rubbing even 
more off themselves than off us. We might have been 
the best bargainer at a conference. But our terrible 
mistake has resulted in the rubbing against us of new 
and heavier sand-paper. 

Could I offer enough to one of my three chief enemies 
to satisfy her into an unwillingness to continue the 
struggle I should be pulling the prop from beneath the 



THE QUICKSANDS 319 

other two. Two years ago it was an axiomatic illusion 
with us that we could always buy Americans ; to-day we 
are bewildered at the realisation that America is more 
sweeping in her demands against us than are her allies. 
There is nothing we can offer her, for she wants noth- 
ing save a change in our political ideals. Such a change 
we must refuse above all else, for it would toll the 
death-knell of our whole system and the kind of great- 
ness we have built upon it. 

For more than four years France has felt our hand 
upon her throat. From the very beginning the war 
became for her a struggle for existence. Her losses 
have been enormous and her strain nerve-wracking. 
Suppose that the French should wake up some morn- 
ing to read that we had made a genuine offer of peace 
on a basis of status quo ante as it existed between her 
and us, with the addition of a willingness to submit 
Alsace and Lorraine to a plebiscite under international 
supervision of the voting after the signing of peace. 
We could cleverly agree to do this by insisting that 
other nations do the same — such as England with Ire- 
land, and thereby very simply we could create argu- 
ments and dissensions. 

In the meantime we should inspire our various 
enemies with the kind of propaganda suited to their 
several needs. In the case of America it would be 
well to bring about a better feeling towards us. The 
Americans are a sporting people who admire fair play. 
If, taking care not to overplay our hand, we should treat 
American prisoners especially well, give them prompt 
facilities for writing and transmission of letters, in- 
dulge in airplane courtesies in dropping information re- 
garding the fate of their flying men who have fallen be- 



320 THE EDGE OF THE QUICKSANDS 

hind our lines, show kindness to seamen intercepted by 
our U-boats, and so on, we might assuage their bitter 
feeling. Regarding England and France, on the other 
hand, we should show no weakness, only strength. 
France has, to be sure, tied up enormous sums in Rus- 
sia which might induce her to continue the war even be- 
yond the line of our Western peace terms. Yet the right 
kind of propaganda might inspire the masses to refuse 
to fight for a people who had seemingly betrayed them. 
To stop bleeding by the mere acceptance of our offer! 
What a temptation for France ! 

If France showed a desire to withdraw on this basis 
the war spirit in the United States would suffer a se- 
rious relapse, for it is upon France that the superstruc- 
ture of sentiment has been reared. The backfire from 
this relapse would make British politics seethe. Both 
in France and America we could inflame the reply to 
every get-on-with-the-war utterance in England that 
England wished to continue the war from purely selfish 
methods of conquest. This would not be true, but it 
would probably serve our purpose to the extent that an 
anti-war cabinet would come into power — a cabinet sup- 
ported in part by some of the privileged class of heredi- 
tary landed proprietors who are fearful lest the con- 
flict be waged to a stage which will endanger their 
ancient rights. 

The world war is so complex that it is almost impos- 
sible to forecast the linking up of any number of de- 
tails. The insignificant of to-day frequently becomes 
the colossal of to-morrow and upsets all calculations. 
But in the matter of a broad line of policy it is simple 
to plan a course. In brief, since we cannot win of- 
fensively, we must calmly consider how long we can 



THE QUICKSANDS 321 

endure defensively. Next we must convince our ene- 
mies of the enormous price they must pay to drive us 
back by force of arms. Then comes our bargaining, 
which must always be conducted so as to create fric- 
tion. This can be done to some extent while hostilities 
are still in progress, but to a superlative degree if I can 
but entice my enemies to a peace conference while I 
still possess great bargaining power. 

In the event of the worst, I can so fall back that I 
can lure my enemies to the edge of the quicksands be- 
hind which I have taken refuge — my last great line of 
defence, the line upon which I will risk my all. If they 
decide that the quickest way to end the struggle with me 
is the short route through the sands they will be dragged 
down into premature peace and leave me to rebuild my 
power. 

The wondrous hope that quickens my pulse in the ap- 
proaching crisis is that they will be weary of the long 
march and choose the nearest way. I shall tremble 
when they hesitate for if they decide to shut their teeth 
and go around the quicksands my sun of greatness will 
have set. For if my enemies but resolve to stand to- 
gether upon the basis of the American terms and use 
every weapon they possess the Germany of the future 
will be but a great nation among a number of great na- 
tions and not the most powerful and awe-inspiring em- 
pire that the world has ever known. 



FINIS 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: MAY 2001 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 






